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THE STAKEHOLDERS’ RELATIONSHIPS AND THE
FORMATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL INEQUALITIES IN THE
VALDIVIA PLANT, LOS RIOS REGION, CHILE: A CASE
STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL INEQUALITY
By
GABRIELA E. ULLOA
A thesis submitted to the
School of Graduate Studies Rutgers,
The State University of New Jersey
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of
Master of Science
Graduate Program in Geography
Written under the direction of Laura C. Schneider
And approved by
____________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
New Brunswick, New Jersey
MAY, 2018
ii
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
The stakeholders’ relationships and the formation of environmental inequalities in the
Valdivia plant, Los Rios region, Chile: a case study of environmental inequality
By
GABRIELA E. ULLOA
Thesis Director:
Laura C. Schneider
Much of the literature on Environmental Justice documents if a community suffering
from an environmental hazard is non-white or low-income, ignoring the community’s
context and relationships between them. These relationships reflect the formation of
environmental inequality as the continuous shaping and shifting alliances between
multiple stakeholders. By following Pellow’s model of Environmental Inequality
Formation (2000), this thesis investigates the role that different stakeholders play in the
formation of Environmental Inequalities by looking at the events that conforms the
Valdivia Plant’s Cruces River pollution, in the Valdivia province, Los Rios region,
southern Chile. This thesis was conducted using a qualitative method and case study
approach to review the case literature and to gather, code, and interpret secondary sources
of information, including archival records and historical documents in the written form of
news and texts. The information about the Valdivia plant case was gathered between
iii
1994 and 2007. The results from this thesis show that the stakeholders involved in the
case study participated actively and influenced the formation and avoidance of
Environmental Inequality, stepping away from traditional assumptions of a “perpetrator-
victim” scenario where vulnerable communities are passively bearing the pollution.
Accordingly, this thesis also examines the different outcomes that stakeholders can
achieve, by comparing the Maiquillahue Bay and the Cruces River stories of success and
failure regarding the pollution and environmental inequality coming from the Valdivia
Cellulose Plant. Moreover, the purpose of this thesis is to identify the broader causes of
Environmental Inequality, moving beyond the common race/class explanations, and
looking for structural and local forces that may explain the Environmental Inequality
phenomenon. Future research directions in EJ studies should aim to incorporate the
multistakeholder perspective when looking for the causes of environmental inequality,
and to further research locals’ active resistance to environmentally unequal situations.
Keywords: Environmental Inequality, Stakeholders’ relationships, Environmental
Justice.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the development of this thesis. Firstly,
to CONICYT and the Chilean FULBRIGHT Commission, I can’ thank you enough for
funding my master studies at Rutgers University. I sincerely appreciate the confidence
and all the help that these two institutions provided me during these past two years of
study.
This thesis is almost entirely dedicated to my family who supported me long before I
planned on coming to the US to get my master's degree. To my mom, dad, brothers, and
sisters: I love you, and I would not have been able to achieve this goal without your help,
trust and long awkward skype conversations.
To my friends and colleagues, especially Maty, Toti, Damaso, Oscar, Eliud, Diego, LP,
Pamela, Javiera, Karen, Pia, Susanne, Paulina, Aslam and Samantha: thank you for your
love, support, and laughs during these hard times.
To my advisor, Laura, thank you for always pushing me and being there for me. To my
committee members, Kevin and Pam: thank you for your feedback and support.
Lastly, this thesis is also dedicated to the people living in the study area. Thank you to
everyone who helped me frame and develop my argument, in particular, the people from
Mehuin, Mariquina, and Valdivia City. I appreciate your time and disposition to talk to
me: Thank you, Professor Pablo Villarroel, Major of Mariquina Rolando Mitre, Mehuin
fishers, artisans, and locals from the communes of Mariquina and Valdivia.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS ....................................................................................... ii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1 Research question and hypothesis ................................................................................................... 7 Objectives and hypotheses (H) ........................................................................................................ 7 Outline ............................................................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................ 10 EJ definitions ................................................................................................................................. 10 Theories of justice in Environmental Justice ................................................................................. 14 Multistakeholder perspective in the production of environmental inequalities ............................. 16 What are the causes of Environmental Inequality? ........................................................................ 19 Looking at Political Ecology for an explanation ........................................................................... 27 Environmental Inequalities in Latin America and Chile................................................................ 30 Methodological approaches to Environmental Inequality studies ................................................. 35 CHAPTER 3. THE CASE STUDY OF THE VALDIVIA PLANT SITING IN THE
VALDIVIA PROVINCE ................................................................................................ 36 The study area ................................................................................................................................ 36 The case study events..................................................................................................................... 46 The Environmental Impact Assessment studies and resistance (1995-1999) ................................ 48 The Valdivia plant allocation and Cruces River contamination (2004-2007) ............................... 51 The scientific community and the disaster in the Sanctuary .......................................................... 53 CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH DESIGN ........................................................................... 58 Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 59 Data collection and analysis ........................................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 5. RESULTS ................................................................................................ 69 Who are the stakeholders and what do they want? ........................................................................ 69 The company ................................................................................................................................................. 70 The state ........................................................................................................................................................ 75 The citizens movements ................................................................................................................................. 76 The scientists and academic community ........................................................................................................ 79 How do these stakeholders negotiate different environmental outcomes in the case study? ......... 81 Accidental component ................................................................................................................................... 81 Race ............................................................................................................................................................... 83 Local knowledge v. scientific knowledge ....................................................................................................... 84 How did Environmental inequalities unfold as an outcome of these stakeholders’ relationships? 86 Unequal access to decision-making processes .............................................................................................. 86 Environmental Laws and regulations ............................................................................................................ 88 Knowledge production and access to the truth ............................................................................................. 91 CHAPTER 6. DISCUSSION ......................................................................................... 94 The identified stakeholders ............................................................................................................ 94 The role of the stakeholders’ relationships in the avoidance or production of environmental
inequalities: race, autonomy, and accident components ................................................................ 98 Environmental inequalities formation (EIF) ................................................................................ 101 CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 107
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BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 109 APPENDIX. SECONDARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION ............................... 121
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Population and level of indigeneity .................................................................... 40 Table 2. Indigenous population in rural communities near the plant. .............................. 43 Table 3. Indigenous people in rural communities near the Maiquillahue bay. ................. 44 Table 4. Literature review of the Valdivia plant case study ............................................. 63 Table 5. Data sources. ....................................................................................................... 63 Table 6. Sources of information and documentation per stakeholder. ............................. 64
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1. The Los Rios Region and National context. ...................................................... 38 Figure 2. Map of social capital. Source: (BCN, 2017). .................................................... 40 Figure 3. Settlements near the Valdivia cellulose plant .................................................... 42 Figure 4. Settlements near the Maiquillahue Bay. ............................................................ 44 Figure 5. Indigenous communities in the study area. ....................................................... 45 Figure 6. Social capital and indigenous communities in the study area. .......................... 46 Figure 7. Level of interest per attribute ............................................................................ 67 Figure 8. Stakeholders involvement during 1995 and 1999. ............................................ 72 Figure 9. Stakeholders involvement during 2004 and 2007. ............................................ 73 Figure 10. CELCO’s influence. ........................................................................................ 75 Figure 11. The state and environmental authorities influence. ......................................... 76 Figure 12. The “sea defense” committee influence. ......................................................... 78 Figure 13. AXC influence. ................................................................................................ 79 Figure 14. The scientists and academic community influence. ........................................ 80
1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
The Environmental Justice social movement and body of literature (EJ) studies, fights,
and documents the excessive ecological hazard exposure that vulnerable communities
face near their neighborhoods, schools, and workplace (Bullard, 1996). According to
Mossa and Ramia (2014), the EJ term may mean one of two things:
1) a movement that focuses on the fair distribution of benefits and burdens. 2) an
interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes theories of the
environment, theories of justice, environmental law and governance, environmental
policy and planning, development, sustainability, and political ecology (Moosa &
Ramia, 2014:62).
Both terms became relevant in the 1980s. The Environmental Justice social movement
started in 1982 when civil rights activists gathered to stop the dumping of more than 120
million pounds of contaminated PCBs in Warren, North Carolina, a county inhabited by a
large African American population (Newton, 1996). Soon after, EJ studies emerged as an
interdisciplinary endeavor in which scholars, activists, and scientists documented the
uneven impacts of pollution on society. These studies concluded that people's race and
socioeconomic position play a fundamental role when looking at how exposed they are to
higher loads of environmental hazards that come from air, water, and soil pollution, as an
outcome of industrialization and consumer practices (Pellow et al., 2001). The
phenomenon became well-known as environmental racism, environmental inequality, or
environmental justice; all concepts that have informed environmental politics, public
policy, and social theory (Pellow, 2000). Scholars looking at Environmental Inequality
document spaces of discrimination, where inequities are not random events, but instead,
2
they are the "consequence of official public and corporate policies that could either be
conscious and deliberative or unconscious and responsive to other dynamics" (Been,
1993; Kaswan, 1997).
While there is a correlation between race and class with the unequal exposure to
environmental hazards, some EJ scholars discuss that the appearance of Environmental
Inequalities is not merely understood as an imposition that comes from a privileged
class/race of people over another; instead, its appearance is constituted through a process
of continuous change, actions, and resistances that shape and reorganize social and
environmental disparities along the way (Pellow, 2000; Mohai et al., 2009). This
paradigm is highly relevant considering that much of the Environmental Justice research
only documents if the community suffering from an environmental hazard is less
powerful, non-white or low-income, ignoring the community's context, dynamic, inputs,
relationships, and outcomes with other actors involved (Pellow, 2001).
Moreover, EJ researchers analyze case studies and historical patterns to provide a more
contextual understanding about why Environmental Inequalities arise in the first place,
while also examining the incipient organizations that might challenge this phenomenon
(Mohai et al., 2009). These considerations are intended to reveal the driving forces that
work against the cause of Environmental Justice, including not only economic factors or
discriminations towards vulnerable communities, but also local interests, alliances, and
divisions between various stakeholders that negotiate throughout the process of formation
of environmental disparities (Pellow, 2000).
3
According to Pellow et al. (2001), the importance of looking at the context of
Environmental Inequality Formation is based on the fact that unjust outcomes are more
than the presence or absence of hazards in the territory. These outcomes occur when:
Different stakeholders struggle for access to valuable resources within a political
economy in which the benefits and costs of those resources, such as clean air and
working environments, power, wealth, and status, become unevenly distributed.
[This is revealed] when stakeholders who are unable to mobilize resources are more
likely to suffer from environmental hazards, and the stakeholders with more access
to resources can divest other stakeholders from the same access (Pellow et al.,
2001:428).
This thesis examines the importance of these relationships by looking at the role that
different stakeholders play in the formation of Environmental Inequalities in the context
of the siting of the Valdivia cellulose plant or “Valdivia Plant” in the Valdivia province
in Los Rios region, southern Chile. More particularly, this thesis studies the different
events, within the same case study, that illustrate the different environmental outcomes
that arise when different interests and relationships between stakeholders reveal result in
unevenly distributed resources.
The review of events starts in 1995 when the cellulose plant investment project was
submitted to the environmental authorities by the CELCO - Arauco company S.A.
(CELCO), a multinational forestry company located in Chile and other countries of South
America.
Multiple stakeholders intervened to modify the location of the plant's effluents because of
the proximity of the plant to a protected Nature Sanctuary and wetland located 32 km
downstream of the effluents’ stationary point. The location of these toxins started a
conflict between the communities, the state and the company between 1995 and 1999.
4
The environmental authorities asked CELCO to move them to the sea and into the
Maiquillahue Bay, a fishing cove that resisted and successfully avoided the siting of a
proposed pipeline that would travel all to way from the Valdivia plant, located in
Mariquina to the Bay’s territory, 50 km to the shore. The company and the state, both
short on alternatives, settled to dump the effluents into the Cruces River, despite the
alarm concerning the proximity to a protected Sanctuary and wetland.
Following events, including the actual siting of the Valdivia plant in Mariquina and the
contamination of the Cruces river, were reviewed between the years 2004 and 2007 to
pay attention to the process of formation of Environmental Inequality. During these
years, and as a result of the contamination of the Cruces River, a citizens' movement was
formed to claim justice in the name of the environment and the people from the Cruces
River basin. Moreover, this movement, called "Acción Por Los Cisnes" (AXC), was
named after the black-necked swan, an emblematic bird species that disappeared from the
Nature Sanctuary and wetland located in the river only four months after the plant started
its operations. During these years there is an avid conflict surrounding the responsibility
of CELCO and the Valdivia Plant for the death and migration of these birds from the
basin.
The case study is approached adopting the Environmental Inequality framework
postulated by Pellow (2000), in which he examines the stakeholders' relationships and
their active participation in the avoidance or production of environmental inequalities.
This framework also includes a “multistakeholder perspective” (Pellow, 2000), which
notes that:
5
Environmental inequalities are not always imposed unilaterally by one stakeholder
on another, but rather, like all forms of inequality, [they] emerge through a process
of ongoing change that involves negotiation and conflict among many stakeholders
(Pellow, 2000:592).
This perspective also pays attention to the position of each of these stakeholders and their
levels of influence and power dynamics in the case study. This thesis goal is to critically
examine the role of the involved stakeholders departing from conventional accounts of
Environmental Inequality where particular social groups are disproportionately burdened
by environmental hazards (Bullard, 1996).
In this context, class and political clout are important because they often place specific
people in a position of power over others to benefit from the production of environmental
inequality (Newton, 1996). The tensions generated by their different background and
interests are significant because the relationships between stakeholders and their
resistance practices can produce or avoid pollution and the siting of hazardous facilities
across different geographical spaces when shifting these power and political dynamics
(Skewes & Guerra, 2004; Hurley, 1995; Walsh et al., 1997). Moreover, under Pellow's
framework (2000), social inequalities go further than class or race and considers other
explanations about the causes of environmental inequality, such as the unequal access
that certain vulnerable groups may have to political decision-making processes in
environmental policy (Camacho, 1998), or the uneven access that they may have to
scientific knowledge (Agyeman, 2005; Walker, 2010). This is the case of most of Latin
America’s EJ struggles, where trade policies and the opening to market economies affect
the environmental arena and reveals who benefits and who absorbs the costs (in the form
6
of pollution) of economic expansion, which relates to notions of EJ struggles but that also
Political Ecology (Newell, Contesting trade politics in the Americas: The politics of
Environmental Justice, 2008), a theoretical approach that studies how political economy
impacts local environments (Bryant R. , Political Ecology: A critical Agenda for
Change?, 2001). More particularly, “these studies are sensitive to the interplay of diverse
socio-political forces and their relationship to environmental change,” (Bryant, 1992:14)
which also related to the outcomes that result from the stakeholders’ characterization and
relationships. In this thesis, these relationships are important because they can inform
about the different outcomes and resistance practices that appear when looking at the
events that happened in the Maiquillahue Bay and Cruces River basin.
The understanding of environmental inequality as a process allows the involvement of
these negotiations, conflicts, and resistance among multiple stakeholders as fundamental
in the creation of winners and losers in the conflict (Pellow, 2000). Here, the narrative of
environmental justice overlaps with the one of Political Ecology, noting that "Political
Ecology focuses on stories of justice and injustice" (Robbins, 2004:87). Both narratives
consider the uneven consequence that disempowered communities bear in comparison to
others, keeping in mind this as a continuous, shifting, or repetitive process. Nonetheless:
While Political Ecology extends the notion of justice and injustice to the
environment itself, the environmental justice framework attends specifically the
dynamics regarding the location of environmental hazards, and the tendency of
minority communities to expose to toxic dumping (Robbins, 2012:87).
In his multiple stakeholders' perspective, Pellow (2000) explains that Environmental
Inequalities not only occur as a result of poor people or people of color being dumped on
7
or exposed to hazards because they do not have power in comparison to a company or the
state (Pellow, 2000:587). The race/class reasoning may be usually correct, but overly
simplistic of important details such as the role that the stakeholders' interests play in
producing environmental inequality or the significant variabilities that these inequalities
may represent across different places, as “no two environmental justice struggles are the
same” (Pellow, 2000). At the same time, power dynamics and difference across these
geographical spaces can reveal structural or local forces that help to produce
Environmental Inequality.
Research question and hypothesis
Following the previously noted research problematic, the primary research question of
this thesis will aim to answer the following question: "How did the stakeholders'
relationships produced Environmental Inequalities in the Valdivia plant case study"?
This question is answered by addressing the following sub-questions:
- Who are these stakeholders and what do they want?
- How do these stakeholders negotiate different environmental outcomes in the case
study?
- How do environmental inequalities unfold as an outcome of these stakeholders'
relationships?
Objectives and hypotheses (H)
The first sub-question allows us to unpack the motivations and behaviors of the
stakeholders involved in the environmental conflict. This question aims to realistically
8
characterize the identified stakeholders without reducing them to "poor rural
communities against multibillionaire international corporation," recognizing the shifting
power dynamics that these may present in the case study.
H1: The stakeholders in the conflict are not involved in a simple “perpetrator-victim
scenario”. Instead, they have power and participate actively in the events portrayed in the
case study.
The second sub-question focuses on the different social and geographical composition
between the citizens’ movements from the Maiquillahue bay and the Mariquina/Valdivia
city. This question addresses the factors that influenced the avoidance and production of
environmental inequality in the Valdivia plant case study.
H2: The avoidance and production of Environmental Inequalities are the result of
negotiations and conflicts between the stakeholders involved in the case study.
The third sub-question considers Pellow's understanding of Environmental Inequality,
which is produced when “different stakeholders struggle for access to valuable resources
within a political economy in which the benefits and burdens of those resources become
unevenly distributed,” and identifies these unevenly distributed resources to understand
the structural and local forces that contribute to the formation of Environmental
Inequality (Pellow et al., 2001:428).
H3: The outcomes that result from the stakeholders' relationships and their struggles over
resources in the Valdivia plant case study reveal the structural and local forces that
produce environmental inequality.
9
The inclusion of these three sub-questions contributes to the understanding of the causes
that produced Environmental Inequality.
Outline
The outline of this thesis follows Chapter Two, which provides the theoretical and
conceptual framework used in this thesis, incorporating EJ definitions and theories to
discuss the production of environmental inequality in the "Valdivia plant" case study.
This chapter further presents the approach that is used in the analytical section of this
thesis. Chapter Three presents the study area, and the background of the events that
conforms the Valdivia plant case study. Chapter Four discusses the methodology and
research design. Chapter five presents the results of this thesis. Chapter six contains the
discussion and analysis of the findings regarding the theory presented in chapter two.
Also, in this chapter, the research questions and hypothesis presented in chapter one is
answered. Chapter Seven contains the conclusion and recommendations of this thesis.
10
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter serves to explore the Environmental Justice theoretical framework that was
used to understand the role of the stakeholders' relationships in the production of
environmental inequalities in the Valdivia plant siting case study. This framework also
includes a brief review of EJ studies in Chile, which includes an examination of Chile’s
marked history of neoliberal policies and environmental conflicts. The chapter begins
with a critical examination of core EJ concepts, including definitions, theories, and
justice claims, accompanied by an extensive review of the literature, which focuses in the
causes and process of production of environmental inequality. Additionally, this literature
review includes previous findings and methods to approach the problematic and the
identification of knowledge gaps in Environmental Justice studies.
EJ definitions
There are many terms used in EJ to describe occurrences like the one happening in the
Valdivia plant siting. In the case study, it is possible to see a link between the
geographical location of the plant/toxic waste disposal system with the social
composition of the nearby communities, which are mostly constituted by indigenous
communities and poor people, making of it a case of interest to EJ studies.
However, is this case related to environmental racism, environmental inequality or
environmental justice? Considering how unclear these concepts can be, the first task of
11
this literature review is to define these terms to have a shared understanding of the ideas
that are sometimes used so casually in Environmental Justice studies.
The definitions of Environmental Racism, Environmental Inequality (or Equity) and
Environmental Justice are provided by Bunyan Bryant (1995), who defined
environmental racism as the deliberative targeting of communities, such as black or
ethnic communities, for least desirable land uses, resulting in segregated exposures to
environmental hazards (Bryant, 1995).
Moreover, the term "Environmental Justice" was defined by Robert Bullard, as a
principle to be followed, noting that "all people are entitled to equal protection of
environmental and public health laws and regulations" (Bullard, 1996). Environmental
Justice, as a principle, focuses on research programs that attempt to detect the existence
of environmental racism or environmental discrimination, to uncover the reasons that
explain these practices and promote the enforcement of existing or new laws that are
needed to eliminate overall discrimination (Newton, 1996:5). Communities in which
Environmental Justice prevails are "culturally and biologically respected, supported by
safe jobs, health care, and democratic decision-making processes" (Bryant, 1995:6).
However, the EJ body of literature mainly reveals unjust situations where "people of
color and low-income persons carry out greater environmental and health risks in
comparison to society at large in their neighborhoods, workplaces, and playgrounds"
(Bullard & Johnson, 2000:558).
12
Moreover, Environmental Inequality studies the unequal protection of environmental
laws and expands on how rules "should be enforced equally to ensure the proper siting,
clean-up of hazardous waste, and the effective regulation of industrial pollution,
regardless of the racial and economic composition of the community" (Bryant, 1995:6).
This thesis frames the Valdivia plant case study within the “Environmental Inequality”
definition, because the case considers issues of unequal access to decision-making
processes and environmental protection, in which discriminating actions are not
particularly evaluated.
According to David Pellow, Environmental Inequality phenomenon is a process (Pellow,
2000). This term is further explained in his work on “Environmental Inequality
Formation” or EIF model, where he mentions that “Environmental inequality focuses on
broader dimensions of the intersection between environmental quality and social
hierarchies. It addresses structural questions that focus on social inequality and
environmental burdens.” (Pellow, 2000:582). Considering this definition, the author
emphasizes that, unlike environmental racism, environmental inequalities include any
type of hazard that impacts any particular social group (Pellow, 2000).
Consequently, Environmental Justice's various definitions acknowledge that "the cost of
pollution and environmental protection is unevenly distributed in our society" (Edwards,
1995:36). EJ studies not only consider the disproportionate siting of hazardous waste
sites, incinerators, landfills, polluting industries, and facilities (Bryant, 1995; Bullard R.
D., 1990; Bullard R. D., 1996; Bullard & Johnson, 2000; Mohai & Saha, 2007); but also
13
look at inequality in the application of environmental laws and standards in vulnerable
communities, including studies that document the lack of environmental enforcement in
vulnerable groups of people (Pellow et al., 2001). These studies also acknowledge the
need to achieve more recognition, participation, capabilities, and overall justice for
people. These terms are addressed in the next section of this chapter.
Among the many definitions that EJ may present, David Schlosberg mentions that there
are knowledge gaps when studying the connection between Environmental Justice theory
with the environment itself (Schlosberg, 2013). In "Sustainable communities and the
challenge of Environmental Justice," Agyeman argues that Environmental Justice should
go beyond socio-cultural impacts alone to incorporate the interactions that exist between
social and environmental communities. This, in the case study context, would have been
a good starting point to connect the citizens’ movements’ formation with the death of the
black-necked swans in the Valdivia plant case study.
Moreover, Agyeman argues that the ecological damage done to ecosystems can lead to
greater vulnerabilities to human and non-human communities (Agyeman, 2005), so
further EJ studies should include these linkages in the study of environmental
inequalities. In an interview with Laura Pulido, David Pellow also recognized the
struggle between the notions of Environmental Justice and "ecological justice." Pellow
mentioned that while the former is more human-centered, the latter opens up ways of
thinking about the world as "multispecies societies, communities, and polities" (Pulido,
2017:46).
14
Ecological justice, as discussed by Pellow, should be fully included in the definition of
Environmental Justice because it incorporates a respectful engagement to think and
achieve justice for multiple species, through more democratic practices (Pulido, 2017).
Theories of justice in Environmental Justice
One of the objectives of this thesis is to understand the different environmental outcomes
presented in the Valdivia case study. To move on this direction, it is important to review
the different justice claims that resistance groups exercise when perceiving injustice in
their environments.
Most claims developed in Environmental Justice cases are rooted in the expectation of
distributive justice (Bryner, 2002). While this understanding is pertinent in
Environmental Justice studies, they focus on a conception of justice that is defined only
as "the distribution of goods in a society, and the best principles by which to distribute
those goods" (Schlosberg, 2007:3). The second form of justice, known as procedural
justice, pays attention to the political process and the fairness in the decision-making
process (Kaswan, 1997).
Environmental justice scholarship mostly deals with claims about distribution
(Schlosberg, 2007), but there are further ways of understanding the processes of justice
and injustice. These processes incorporate notions about the development of
maldistribution, and highlight the need to achieve social recognition of various cultures
and races, as a pivotal element to reach a just outcome (Fraser, 1996). Additionally, some
theories point that justice looks for a real inclusion and political participation from
15
various people, with a broad array of interests (Hunold & Young, 1998). Other authors
argue that justice is achieved once these communities are empowered and have the
capacities that are necessary for them to reach their full potential in life (Nussbaum,
2011).
Moreover, Young and Hunold illustrate the importance of distributive and procedural
justice in an analysis of case studies of polluting waste sites in the US (Hunold & Young,
1998). In their work, the notions about distributive equity are central. These authors argue
about who has the right to make a decision and by "what procedures?" criticizing that
many times distribution and equity assume just institutions, which, as we see in the
Valdivia plant case study, is not always the case.
Moreover, Hampton (1999) discusses the necessity of the stakeholders’ involvement in
the decision-making process to achieve equity. He also argues that "the promotion of
environmental equity requires the provision of conditions and resources that can enable
communities to freely express their opinions" (Hampton, 1999:165). Hampton goes
further and mentions that people should count with the procedural opportunity to make
their values explicit, participate, and have an impact in policy to encourage a sense of
justice in the community (Hampton, 1999). Other authors, such as Cable, Mix, and
Hastings, look at EJ as the study of excessive hazard exposure, according to class and
race, and state that "the goal of the Environmental Justice is equitable distribution."
Nonetheless, they highlight the importance of respect, recognition of local expertise, and
participation (Cable, Mix, & Hastings, 2005). These claims are common when
16
communities react and contest an already sited polluting facility (Capek, 1993), which is
the case of the Valdivia and Mariquina communities.
However, and as this thesis argues, justice claims are not always founded on participation
claims. Peña argues that Environmental Justice is about autonomy above all else (Peña,
2005). Autonomy, according to the author, is the essence of Environmental Justice
studies because it allows communities and local cultures to claim control over their
territory by "exercising freedoms to organize their production and consumption in
sustainable and equitable patterns that derive from self-generated ecologically and
culturally appropriate norms" (Peña, 2005:144). These claims were a particularity of the
"Sea defense committee" in the Maiquillahue Bay.
Multistakeholder perspective in the production of environmental inequalities
EJ studies that examine environmental inequalities focus on “the broader dimensions of
the intersection between environmental quality and social hierarchies" (Pellow,
2000:582). However, as Szasz and Meuser (1997) indicate, most of the literature
surrounding Environmental Justice focuses on the unequal outcomes in space, without
examining the mechanisms behind them, such as social hierarchies (Szasz & Meuser,
1997). To cover this ground, David Pellow examines the processes and mechanisms
behind environmental inequality by analyzing sociohistorical occurrences, multiple
stakeholders' relationships, social stratification, like class and race, and resistance
practices against toxins and other environmental hazards (Pellow et al. 2001). This
framework was created to uncover the underlying assumptions that contribute to the
production of differential exposures to environmental hazards. In this offered scenario
17
and extended Environmental Justice framework, alleged victims shift into active agents in
the practices that shape the process of environmental inequalities before, during, and after
they emerge, providing new understandings about the production of environmental
disparities as a continuous and changing process (Pellow, 2000). To work within this EJ
framework, Pellow introduced the "Environmental Inequality Formation" model (EIF) to
see how these social relations and patterns influence the production of environmental
inequalities (Pellow, 2000).
Pellow considers the involvement of multiple stakeholders in the spatial decision-making
process and shaping of environmental inequality as one of three ways to study
Environmental Justice as an ongoing process that emerges from different contexts,
stories, and scales (Pellow, 2000). In the present thesis this framework is adopted to
analyze the actions and outcomes of the stakeholders’ relationships and environmental
influence in the Valdivia plant case study.
Pellow argues that traditional assumptions about corporations polluting neighborhoods
that lack the power to challenge the injustice are not completely accurate. He notes that
even if the industry or the government are guilty of committing unjust actions,
community leaders, neighbors, and environmentalists are also implicated in the
production of Environmental Inequalities (Pellow, 1999; 2000; Pellow et al., 2001).
Studies of EJ issues, such as the ones written by Hurley (1995) and Walsh et al. (1997)
prove this by showing how stakeholders can actively negotiate their quality living and
environmental conditions. The author developed a theoretical perspective that argues that
“when one studies environmental inequality from a multistakeholder perspective, it
18
becomes clear that environmental inequalities are not always simply imposed unilaterally
by one stakeholder on another” (Pellow, 2000:592). Moreover, the author notes that
environmental inequality is an ongoing process that involves the complex interests,
conflicts, relationships, and negotiations among various stakeholders (Pellow, 2000;
2001; 2017; Pellow et al., 2001).
Who are these stakeholders and what do they want? Pellow is asking the EJ body of
literature to expand on the active role that various groups of people play in the formation
of Environmental Inequality. This thesis argues that the inequality component moves
away from the class and race analysis and examines the broader explanations that
influenced the development of environmental inequality in the Valdivia plant case study.
Following Pellow’s theoretical perspective about the role of these stakeholders as “active
participants,” the role of citizen’s movements will be explored in the Valdivia plant case
study, paying attention to the modes of resistance that provided power to the wrongly
categorized “weak” population from the Valdivia province. These resistances are very
important because they show the different activities that citizens’ movements can do to
avoid siting attempts1 and explore the broader questionings about EJ studies a
movements’ efficacy and capacity to achieve Environmental Justice. Moreover, these
struggles not only reveal the active role that communities have in Environmental
Inequality case studies, but they also uncover the underlying causes that cause
inequalities to manifest in the first place.
1 To read more on the avoidance of siting attempts see Walsh et al., 1997
19
What are the causes of Environmental Inequality?
Environmental Justice critiques "mainstream" environmentalists' movements because
they leave out social justice components from their environmental protection claims
(Sandler & Pezzullo, 2007), and policymakers because they do not consider EJ principles
when proposing solutions to environmental problems (Faber, 2007). Conversely, the EJ
body of literature and movement is also criticized for not having clarity on what to do
after documenting an environmentally unjust situation (Mohai et al., 2009). Despite the
clear definition of Environmental Justice issues, there are disagreements regarding their
underlying causes and possible solutions. Moreover, there is a lack of studies that look
other dynamics besides race and class (Pellow, 2000).
Stephen Sandweiss (1998) mentions that disagreements like these “seriously threatens the
ability of Environmental Justice to achieve the substantive policy changes it is
demanding" (Sandweiss, 1998). However, notwithstanding the current difficulties in
determining the specific cause of present-day Environmental Inequalities, numerous
arguments explain the disparate impacts on why such inequality exists so broadly (Mohai
et al., 2009). These alternative explanations to the same unequal outcome help to think
about what policies could be useful to improve or end environmental inequality.
Following the same principle, these alternative explanations may also help movements'
strategies when considering their claims or demands.
The historical patterns of social inequality and ethnic discrimination in EJ studies are
broadly understood to "have a relationship with the conditions produced by the region´s
insertion into the international economy" (Borg Rasmussen & Pinho, 2016:8). This,
20
which appears to be too broad, is further elaborated to include that environmental
injustice arises from political, economic, and social conditions that impact the poorest
and most discriminated and marginalized population (Mohai et al., 2009). These social
dynamics in EJ studies are further categorized in economic, sociopolitical, and racial
discrimination (Mohai et al., 2009).
The economy’s main argument is that the industry is not looking to discriminate racial,
ethnic, or poor communities, but instead, is trying to maximize profits and reduce the cost
of doing business (Been, 1993). The latter occurs when the industry sits near its raw
materials or when it seeks to locate near cheap land, labor, and other resources (Hurley,
2005); all of which could be coincidental to where poor people live (Mohai & Saha,
2007). This scenario can also change after the siting of the facility because the plant
could impact residents that may have the financial means to move out, leaving the more
impoverished residents behind. Vicki Been discusses that in these cases the
socioeconomic status of the neighborhood would decrease, aggravating racial or
socioeconomic disparities in the already polluted environment (Been, 1993). Moreover,
the emigration of high rent population from these settings can also lower property values,
attracting more poor people to move in, further increasing their concentration around
contaminated areas (Mohai et al., 2009).
The sociopolitical explanations in EJ studies indicate that the industry and the
government seek the path of least resistance when siting new polluting industrial facilities
or when dumping hazardous waste disposal (Mohai et al., 2009). Thus, while the industry
is aware that many communities could oppose the construction of a polluting industrial
21
plant, they seek to avoid the ones that are most capable of forming an active opposition
by locating near the ones that don't. The lack of resistance usually comes from
communities with fewer resources and little representation in the decision-making
process, which is primarily guided by the industry or the government (Mohai & Saha,
2007; Mohai et al., 2009).
Questions about power and politics arise in Environmental Justice disputes when
communities feel that they are being selected for undesirable territorial uses because of
the decision makers' failure to treat that community with the same respect as others
(Kaswan, 1997). In the siting of polluting industries context, the politics of
Environmental Justice is well studied when looking at the example of the Cerrell's
associates report (Been, 1993; Kaswan, 1997). This report was written in the name of the
California Waste Management Board (CWMB), and it was called "Political difficulties
facing waste-to-energy conversion plant siting" (Cerrell Associates, 1984). In the report,
the authors determined that:
All socioeconomic groupings tend to resent the nearby siting of major facilities, but
middle and upper socioeconomic strata possess better resources to effectuate their
opposition. Middle and higher socioeconomic strata neighborhoods should not fall
within the one-mile and five-mile radius of the proposed site (Cerrell Associates,
1984:25-26).
These types of reports show the rationale used to avoid political repercussions from a
hazardous siting. This responds not only to class differences but to the political process in
which some communities are considered as recipients of hazardous facilities while others
are not. Camacho (1998) argues that the power dynamics, in the context of unjust
22
decision-making' processes, exclude those communities who are weak in comparison to
those who are stronger. However, the affected communities are not passive or quiet when
confronted with this reality. According to Camacho, impoverished communities can
develop "insurgencies" when the restructurings of existing power relations happen
(Camacho, 1998:19). The instability that occurs when there are shifts in the political and
economic landscape disrupts the status quo and encourages collective action by organized
groups that feel prepared to contest the new political order (Camacho, 1998). This can
work to increase the political leverage of vulnerable communities, thus changing the
power relations that they have with more powerful groups surrounding the conflict
(Camacho, 1998). In the Valdivia plant case, Sepulveda and Villarroel argued that the
accumulation of environmental disputes, which started with the first EIA studies
submitted by the company, provoked an institutional breakdown by the end of 2004,
which allowed the coordination of social responses in the community of Valdivia to arise
(Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). And, even when these insurgencies did not shut-down
the cellulose plant, they made visible the structural crisis of legitimacy in the
environmental laws and EIA regulation system (Sepulveda & Villarroel, 2012).
Furthermore, while the exposure to pollution and hazardous facilities may not be
sufficient to generate the reversal of a siting decision, it can increase the accountability of
decision-makers to groups that might have been ignored in the past (Walsh et al., 1997).
EJ scholars have identified patterns to characterize the grassroots movements that have
been able to stop the siting of polluting facilities in comparative case studies in the US
(Bullard, 1996; Walsh et al., 1997). These studies discovered that the best predictor of
23
success in stopping polluting facilities included having people with pre-existing social
capital, such as education and high-income (Walsh et al., 1997), and communities with
elevated levels of organization, despite of their income or levels of education (Mohai &
Saha, 2007; Mohai et al., 2009; Skewes & Guerra, 2004).
The racial discrimination explanations expand the previous arguments and include the
ethnic pattern in siting decisions (Bullard, 1996). As Mohai and others have mentioned:
Even though overtly racist attitudes and actions may be a thing of the past in public
policy circles, current decisions that may seem racially neutral in their face, may
nevertheless have discriminatory outcomes because of past discriminatory actions
(Mohai et al., 2009:415).
Sociohistorical work has been done to cover these racial discrimination explanations
(Pulido, 1996a; Pulido, 1996b), but in general, discriminating acts can be very difficult to
prove, especially in legal instances (Been, 1993; Kaswan, 1997; Kaswan, 1997).
These three categories of explanation are not mutually exclusive or comfortable to
unravel. For instance, if people of color/ethnic communities are targeted for the siting of
a new locally unwanted land use because they are less likely to mount useful oppositions,
this does not mean that the industry motives are not also based on racial discrimination
(Mohai et al., 2009:415). According to the theories posed by these authors,
Environmental Inequalities emerge as a product of market dynamics, sociopolitics, and
racial discrimination, which affects the most marginalized population. These social
dynamics generate inequalities that are visible not only because of the existence of
hazards and pollution, but because of the unequal access to procedural/political justice,
24
recognition, participation, and capabilities (Fraser, 1996; Hunold & Young, 1998;
Nussbaum, 2011).
Among other explanations concerning the causes of Environmental Inequalities, Pellow
noted that environmental Justice activists use a "political-economic frame" to assign
blame and look for the causes of their environmental problems in a study about
consensus-based decision-making (CBDM) (Pellow, 1999). The frame consisted of
claiming that the state and the industry colluded to produce the increasing ecological and
economic injustices against vulnerable communities, while these same fragile
communities were allowed little or no participation in the decision-making process that
produced the ecological or economic degradation in the first place. The framework was
also criticized for considering the health of the economy and the stability of the
environment as the same thing (Pellow, 1999).
Even when considering this frame to explain the existence and understandings of
environmental inequalities, EJ studies show that the causes of inequality can be more
textured and complex, especially bearing in mind the role that environmental institutions
play in the production of ecological inequalities. Considering the events surrounding the
Valdivia plant case study, this thesis argues that the resources that are being fought over
includes the access to democratic decision-making in environmental policy, laws and
regulation, and the access to scientific knowledge production in environmental impact
assessment studies. This responds to studies done in EJ, such as the work of Bullard and
Johnson (2000), which shows that environmental protection and regulation apparatuses
can sometimes reinforce and create inequality in the environment (Bullard, 1996). These
25
authors' dominant paradigm notes that the current environmental protection policies, far
from protecting people, exist to manage and regulate the distribution of risks, resulting
many times in the following:
Institutionalized unequal enforcement; trade of human health for profit; burden of
proof on the "victims" and not on the polluting industry; legitimacy of human
exposure to harmful chemicals, pesticides, and hazardous substances; promotion of
"risky" technologies; exploitation of economically and politically disenfranchised
and vulnerable communities; incentives to ecological destruction; creation of an
industry around risk assessment and risk management; delay in cleanup actions; and
failure to develop pollution prevention as the overarching and culminant strategy.
(Bullard & Johnson, 2000:558).
This situation is also stated by Kaswan, who mentions that environmental and land use
laws provide fewer ecological benefits and worsen the ecological conditions of
vulnerable communities (Kaswan, 1997). The author comments that this may happen
because environmental regulations fail to consider the distributional consequences and
effects on the population, serving to the wealthy better than they serve the poor (Kaswan,
1997). This last point is taken by Lazarus (1994), who discusses the ways in which
environmental strategies assist, or harm, communities in different ways. He firstly claims
that national environmental laws, which pursue the reduction of ambient levels of
pollution, fail to address the concentrations of pollution to which vulnerable groups are
exposed. An example is waste disposal, since this is moved and concentrated in few
places, such as landfills, impacting some communities in disproportionate ways. The
second point argues that well-off communities have more means to access environmental
laws and goods, exacerbating the different ecological conditions (Bullard & Johnson,
2000). This point, well discussed by Kaswan (1997) talks about how affluent
26
communities have the resources to participate in environmental proceedings, such as the
hiring of experts to analyze documents, participate in public hearings, or suing decision-
makers more easily in comparison to vulnerable communities (Kaswan, 1997).
Other aspects regarding environmental laws and regulation in EJ studies are discussed by
Bryant (1995). In his book "Environmental Justice," the author argues that "because of
immediate demands for certainty and solution embodied in issue-oriented research,
scientists often find themselves in a position of not knowing more than those affected"
(Bryant, 1995:15). In this context, the scientists that produce the EIA risk assessment
studies are not 100% sure about the risks and usually venture into uncertain decision-
making. Meanwhile, the community affected by uncertainty is rarely a part of that
decision-making process (Bryant, 1995). In EJ studies, the scientists that produce
knowledge about environmental risks are well-examined (Corburn, 2002). According to
Bryant (1995), knowledge production is treated as a commodity, which can be purchased
in the market by the highest bidder (Bryant, 1995). He argues that while science tries to
be neutral, it falls, under the social control of powerful forces, to use science under
certain narratives that are more beneficial for some interest groups, in detriment of others.
This point is also shared by Bailey et al. (1995) who argues that environmental
authorities and industrial interests:
Usually attempt to protect themselves by founding their decision on objective criteria
and the rational logic of risk assessment studies. However, scientific criteria and
logic often ignore the disproportionate burden of environmental and human health
risks imposed on minority communities (Bailey et al., 1995:38).
27
Moreover, a critique coming from EJ studies points to the fact that grassroots
organizations rarely have equal access or influence to publish their local knowledge,
having to educate the public in the streets, or accessing other non-academic platforms to
socialize their knowledge (Skewes, 2004). Some of these critique extents to universities,
which could promote and encourage faculty members to involve in local communities' EJ
problematics (Bailey et al., 1995).
The Valdivia cellulose plant may present other explanations to the production of
Environmental Inequality, including the procedural uncertainty in the EIA system, which
is also criticized by the EJ literature. As Bryant (1995) and Bailey et al (1995) mention,
EIA studies and environmental regulations leaves the general public out of the most
important stages of the decision-making process, which usually include the negotiated
risks, the location of the hazardous facility, and other technical aspects. At the same time,
even when the community participates in the EIA process, this participation only happens
after the project is already outlined, and its claims have to be based on scientific and non-
sentimental arguments (Garcia et al., 2006).
Looking at Political Ecology for an explanation
While taking the task of critically studying human-environment relations, the Political
Ecology field of study has reached a respectable position in geographical scholarship ever
since Eric Wolf (1972) first coined the term. Since its beginning, Political Ecology
studies have analytically assessed how the least powerful groups in society inhabits the
most hazardous environments (O’Keefe et al., 1976); and how this relates to the insertion
to the global economy and capitalist dynamics (Watts, 2000).
28
In the global context of neoliberal capitalism, the causes of Environmental Inequality can
be concealed behind social relations, capitalism, and the social construction of what
constitute “the environment” (Bryant R. , 1998). The Political Ecology approach can
uncover these inequalities by studying political economy, marginalization, social
constructionism, and social relations, all of which are relevant as underlying causes of
environmental injustice (Bryant & Bailey, 1997). The approach also provides a larger
social and political economic framework to the situations occurring in the study area,
including the role of neoliberalism in the marginalization of rural or indigenous
communities, and their exposure to hazardous facilities (Sundberg, 2008). As Budds
comments, “the emphasis [of Political Ecology] has been placed on both plurality of
explanation rather than cause and effect, and in the shift from a positivist to an
interactionist approach” (Budds, 2004).
Moreover, as the extended Environmental Justice framework has evolved to consider
broader explanations to inequality in the environment, it has also informed Political
Ecology studies (Swyngedouw & Heynen, 2004). According to these authors, even
though Environmental Justice lacks a strong theoretical framework, Political Ecology
often fails to be applied in real social and environmental problems, so they complement
each other because the practical characteristic of EJ studies are able to enrich the Political
Ecology field beyond practicality (Swyngedouw & Heynen, 2004).
More particularly for ‘third world countries,’ justice issues are commonly linked to class
inequalities, human rights, property rights, local or indigenous knowledge, and so on
(Blaikie, 1995; Bryant & Bailey, 1997).
29
Debates associated with inequality and justice are not new in the Political Ecology field,
which studies marginalized people, the environment, and geography (Robbins, 2004;
Schroeder, St. Martin, Wilson, & Sen, Third world environmental Justice, 2008).
Moreover, the theories that shape the field have social justice concerns at their forefront,
especially in publications such as “Liberation Ecologies” (Peet & Watts, 1996) and “The
Environmentalism of the Poor” (Martinez-Alier J. , 2002), where these authors argue,
between many other points that “development can only occur when the people it affects
participate in the design of the proposed policies, and the model which is implemented
thereby corresponds to the local people’s aspirations” (Statement by the Coordinating
Body for the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, 1989, in Peet & Watts,
1996:29); and where the “environmentalism of the poor” struggles contest risk allocation
and the unequal distribution of gains from resource exploitation (Martinez-Alier 2002).
Furthermore, studies coming from the Political Ecology field also look at the social
construction of the environment itself, looking at it as more than just an objective entity,
and as perceived differently across scales, geographies, time; and subsequently being
constructed according to different positionalities, and mobilized through different voices
and discourses (Blaikie, 1995). Either way, the Political Ecology field starts from the
premise that these environment (and their different understandings and definitions) are
conformed through a political process (Carvalho, 2007), and that “environmental issues
are inherently politicized and cannot be understood in isolation from the political and
economic contexts within which they are produced” (Budds, 2004).
30
As Budds explains, the political and economic context, in the form of social and political
power structures, is reviewed as the underlying processes that explain myriad
environmental implications, such as the allocation of natural resources, and the
marginalization of ‘weak’ social actors (Budds, 2004), for which a Political Ecology
approach to explain the underlying causes of Environmental Inequalities can be of use.
Environmental Inequalities in Latin America and Chile
The narratives and stories about social justice and environmental well-being have come
together in different settings (Carruthers, 2008). Environmental Justice has developed
outside of the US, and all over the world, as an essential part of the "popular
environmentalism" (Carruthers, 2008). However, its emergence and development are
slightly different. For instance, there is a lack of studies documenting the disproportionate
environmental burdens in poor, indigenous, urban, rural, and black communities in Latin
America (Sundberg, 2008).
Moreover, regardless of the rapid growth of industrial production and associated hazards,
there is limited access to data to test the relationships between ethnicity, class, and the
exposure to the myriad environmental risks (Carruthers, 2008; Cifuentes & Frumkin,
2009). There is also limited funding for research and activism since community groups
experience a severe lack of resources, which implicate that environmental groups are less
able to advance their agenda, relying more on denunciation and defense (Kelly, 2002).
The EJ body of literature in Latin America has become a unifying banner of reflection
and mobilization (Carruthers, 2008; Porto, 2012). The field has brought up to the fore
stories and experiences of struggles that come from diverse individuals, communities,
31
and entities. These include grassroots movements, environmentalist, scientist, among
others (Carruthers, 2008).
The historical patterns of social inequality and ethnic discrimination in the region are
broadly understood to "have a relationship with the conditions produced by the region´s
insertion into the international economy" (Borg Rasmussen & Pinho, 2016:8). The latter
means that the distribution of conflicts arises from political, economic, and social
conditions that impact the poorest, most discriminated and marginalized population of the
region (Newell, 2008). The latter is highly related to the extractive nature of the economy
in third world countries, which has allowed the export of risks to nations that have
weaker environmental regulations, affecting mainly indigenous people and low-income
rural communities in Latin America (Szasz & Meuser, 1997).
In relation to the factors that produce Environmental inequalities, EJ issues in Chile are
characteristic of third world countries’ economies. The market economy has allowed the
export of risks and hazards to nations with weaker environmental regulations (Camus &
Hajek, 1998). This has affected, for instance, indigenous people and low-income rural
communities all over Latin America (Carruthers & Rodriguez, 2009). In Chile and other
countries of South America, these environmental conflicts are studied and known as
"socioecological conflicts" (Folchi, 2001). These originate from an environmental harm,
which involves two actors with contradicting interests. In the conflict, one of the actors is
the one that produces the impact, i.e., a company, another one functions as mediator, i.e.,
the state, while the third one defends himself from the impact, i.e., a community (Folchi,
2001). According to San Martin (1997), the conflict does not originate when the impact is
32
done, but when is contested (San Martin, 1997:12). Moreover, these socioecological
conflicts in Chile are responsive to broader sociohistorical explanations linked to the
restructuration of neoliberalism that the country experienced in the late 70's with the help
of Pinochet’s dictatorial regime (Harvey, 2007). Sabatini (1997) argues that the economic
system, combined with the processes of globalization and the economic opening, created
a pressure that increased the rate of extraction of natural resources and industrial
production (Sabatini, 1997). The negative externalities that came out of these practices
headed towards the massive appearance of conflicts in the physical system allowing the
appearance of Environment Justice as a response to the pollution coming from hazardous
facilities (Sabatini, 1997; Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012; Skewes & Guerra, 2004).
As noted by Camus & Hajek (1998), Chile’s democracy period, which started in 1990,
opened the political realm to start making laws for the environment, but the impulse did
not come from national authorities; it occurred in response to external environmental
demands that required minimal environmental standards in their commercial treaties
(Camus & Hajek, 1998). Thus, the new environmental regulations were conceived and
design by economic elites who were committed to the neoliberal agenda of the country
(Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012).
According to Silva, the new institutional design of the Chilean environmental Law
Nº19.300 enacted in 1994, was too limited to focus in the environmental decision-making
process or citizens’ participation, leaving these aspects of the regulation to be interpreted
33
and followed by EIA experts, politicians, and lobbyists (Silva, 1997).2
In their “History of
environmental institutions,” Camus & Hajek stated that because of the previously noted,
since the 19.300 law passed, environmental conflict have multiplied alongside social
unrest (Camus & Hajek, 1998).
In relation to the case study, during Pinochet's dictatorship, Chile faced an economic
liberalization and large-scale timber plantation process that was controlled by private and
multinational forestry companies that gained ownership to large extensions of land,
previously owned by the state and rural communities (Camus & Hajek, 1998). The
forestry sector, distinguished for carrying out an aggressive privatization of forested
lands, benefited from the 701 Decree Law,3 a highly controversial monetary incentive to
plant exotic trees in degraded properties (Kay, 2002).
Rural areas were purchased almost entirely for forestry purposes to secure significant
extensions of territory where the forestry industry could concentrate and control most
phases of the commodity chain. The latter included the planting of tree monocultures,
allocation of industrial plants, and the disposal of toxic waste in the same extensions of
land (González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2017). The capital accumulation that resulted from
this activity was absorbed by the dominant economic groups and most powerful families
of the country, while the associated cost and negative impacts were captured by
defenseless sectors of society (Andersson et al., 2016). The most vulnerable population
2 Sepulveda & Villarroel (2012) argue that the most explicit exclusionary feature of the environmental law
was the procedures for public involvement in the EIA process. According to the authors, participation
opportunities for the community appear only “at the end of the pipe” when the decisions about the siting
had been already made (Sepulveda & Villarroel, 2012:184). 3 The Decree Law Nº701, enacted in 1974 and known as the “Forestry Development Law” gave subsidies
and tax incentives for planting forestry plantations (Navarro, 2014).
34
had to deal with bad smells, pesticides, water and air pollution, droughts, forest fires,
among other hazards that emerged from these extractive and industrial activities, laying
the groundwork for multiple conflicts with the community (Ubeda & Sarricolea, 2016).
According to the National Commission of Innovation and Development (CNID), the most
common socioecological conflicts in Chile occurs in the energy (57%), mining (30,6%),
forestry and farming sector (12,2%). Many scholars have examined these conflicts from
an Environmental Justice perspective to document these issues (Gerber, 2011; Folchi,
2001; Bustos et al., 2017; Romero, 2009).
Environmental Justice's efforts to study the Chilean forestry industry and its waste sites
focuses in the environmental impacts provoked by the industry and the communities’
struggles to avoid the pollution in their environment (Carruthers, 2008; Carruthers &
Rodríguez, 2009; González-Hidalgo & Zografos, 2017; Schlosberg & Carruthers, 2010;
Torres-Salinas et al., 2016). These studies include some interesting work already done
concerning the present Valdivia plant case study, in which the Maiquillahue Bay's
community’ struggles (Skewes & Guerra, 2004), and the "Acción Por Los Cisnes¨
movement against the Valdivia plant are revised (Sepulveda & Villarroel, 2012).
Furthermore, authors such as Romero and Romero et al. (2009; 2010) have discussed the
need to look at the power relations hidden in socioecological conflicts to analyze social
inequalities, politics, and institutions in the context of environmental hazards. According
to Romero (2009):
It is essential and urgent to implement Environmental Justice in Chile, in addition to
recovering and strengthening the social justice platform in territories and landscapes
35
that are currently being affected by complex processes of fragmentation, exclusion,
and inequity (Romero, 2009:38).
These authors also agree that it is crucial to defend those who lack information, such as
the poor and ethnic minorities, by providing them with knowledge and political action
(Romero, 2009; Romero et al., 2010).
Methodological approaches to Environmental Inequality studies
These studies mostly rely on case studies, which are approached from various qualitative
methods, such as participant observation, interviews, or content analysis; or
ethnographies, which assess the environmental inequality in a particular geographical
place, while also looking at the historical processes behind the current problematic under
study. As reviewed in this literature review, studies in environmental inequality explore
real estate dynamics, land use laws, racial discrimination, sociopolitical or economic
discriminations (Been, 1993; Hurley, 1995; Mohai et al., 2009; Pellow, 2000; Walsh,
1997). Laura Pulido mentions that to reveal the complex historical and geographical
processes that generate these patterns of inequality in the environment, the methods
should focus on qualitative approaches, because they offer better ways to approach these
processes (Pulido, 1996a,1996b). On the contrary, quantitative methods would pose an
inconvenient when trying to research a historical process behind environmental
inequalities (Holifield, 2001), unless they present a literature-based historical context,
like the one presented in Szasz and Meuser’s (1997) work.
36
CHAPTER 3. THE CASE STUDY OF THE VALDIVIA PLANT
SITING IN THE VALDIVIA PROVINCE
This chapter presents the study area and explores the background of the Valdivia plant
siting conflict that occurred in Chile from 1995 till 2007.
The study area
The case study area was set in the physical and human environment of the Mariquina and
Valdivia communes, in the Valdivia province, “Los Rios” region, in Chile. The
geographical area under study was limited to the location of the Valdivia plant and its
affected surroundings, in the Valdivia province.
Los Rios region (XIV)4, previously known as the “Los Lagos” Region (X), extends
through an area of 18,429.5 km2, and represents 2.44% of the national surface. It stands
between the 39º 16" and 40º 41" South, and 71º 35" West coordinates (INE, 2007). The
region limits to the north with the Araucania Region, to the east with Argentina, to the
south with “Los Lagos” region, and to the west with the Pacific Ocean. Los Rios has a
population of 356,396 inhabitants, mostly located in the city of Valdivia (INE, 2002).
The population density of the region has 19.3 inhabitants per square kilometer, which is
significantly higher than the national density level (7.5 hab./ km2). The political and
administrative division separates the region in two provinces - Ranco and Valdivia. The
Valdivia province includes the commune of Valdivia and Mariquina, both encompassed
4 Created under Law N°20.176 on March 2007,by the Ministry of the interior, Sub secretary of the interior.
37
in this research. The former constitutes the capital city of the region, while the latter
allocates the Valdivia Cellulose plant.
The climate in the region is temperate-oceanic, or rainy with the absence of a dry period
(Solari et al., 2011). From the hydrographic point of view, this area characterizes for the
presence of many rivers, while its vegetation is distinctive of the rainforest “Valdivian
forest” (PLADECO, 2009). The climatic characteristics in the region and the erosive
action of its glaciers have a considerable influence on the hydrographic features of the
Valdivia basin, making it one of the most beautiful regions of Chile (Solari et al., 2011).
The people that have lived in the area throughout history have witnessed extreme
geological and climatic events, such as eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and
droughts, all of which are highly related to the hydrological system in the region
(Aceituno et al., 2009).
38
Figure 1. The Los Rios Region.
Source: ArcMap 10.5. Basemap.
The most relevant hydrographic systems of this region are the "Valdivia," "Bueno," "San
Pedro," and "Calle-Calle" rivers, which give the region its name. The Cruces River
originates in the hills near the Villarica volcano and meets the Valdivia River in its
coastal range (Solari et al., 2011). This river flows near the cities of Loncoche, Lanco,
and Mariquina, while some of the swampy areas are inside the "Carlos Anwandter Nature
Sanctuary," a protected area and wetland located in the Mariquina and Valdivia
Commune, home to thousands of birds, including the black-necked swans (Galaz, 2006).
The wetland was the result of the 1960s Valdivian’ "great earthquake" which left sunken
39
areas of land near the Cruces River (CMN, 2018)5. This event, plus the presence of the
black-necked swans, made of this wetland a profitable tourism activity for the region
(PLADECO, 2009). The wetland of the Cruces River, inserted in the Carlos Anwandter
Nature Sanctuary, locates between the cities of Valdivia, in the Valdivia commune, and
the “San José” urbanization in the Mariquina commune. Considering the ecological
properties and the importance of the landscape, the wetland was protected through the
RAMSAR convention as the first “Neotropical Wetland of international importance” in
1981 (CMN, 2018).
This thesis focuses on the two communes that were impacted the most with the arrival of
CELCO to the region. These include the Valdivia and Mariquina commune. The
Mariquina Commune is located 40 km from Valdivia city, and is surrounded by the
Cruces River at the south end of the communes’ capital, San Jose de la Mariquina. The
Valdivia commune is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia, and Cau-cau
rivers. Since 2007, Valdivia has been the capital of the Los Rios region (INE, 2007). The
main economic activity of both communes includes agriculture, cattle farming, tourism,
cellulose manufacturing, forestry, and beer production (INE, 2002). The population that
lives in these communes reaches 158.223 people, and the Mariquina commune has a 23%
of indigenous communities in its territory (INE, 2002). Moreover, Valdivia and
5 The wetland was formed in May 1961, after a massive 9.5 earthquake hit the region. The earth
movements provoked a tsunami of 10-15-meter waves that penetrated the estuarine areas around the region
(Cisterna, et al., 2005). Moreover, an area of more than 4 thousand hectares sank under the ground, and
former agricultural and forest lands were flooded, establishing the wetland ecosystem that the region has
today (Galaz, 2006).
40
Mariquina have a 21.32% and 42.63% of people living in poverty, respectively (CASEN,
2011).6
Table 1. Population and level of indigeneity
Source: INE, 2002.
Figure 2. Map of social capital.7 Source: (BCN, 2017).
6 According to the same socioeconomic survey – CASEN, the level of poverty in the entire region reaches a
32%, while the country in general has a 22,2% of poverty (CASEN, 2011). 7 The map represents the socioeconomic status and educational level per census districts of the study area.
While the socioeconomic level is calculated through a division of average income (CASEN, 2011), the
Population and indigenous people
in 2002
Population Indigeneity
Nº % Nº %
Valdivia 140.000 55 7.011 5
Mariquina 18.223 5,11 4.221 23,2
Rest of Valdivia province 101.020 28,4 27.211 10.5
Los Rios Region 356.396 100 40.615 11.4
41
There are four settlements of rural communities located in the immediate perimeter of the
Valdivia cellulose plant, all of which have experienced the harmful contaminants that
emanated from the plant. These four settlements include the urban area of San Jose de la
Mariquina and the rural hamlets of Mariquina station, Rucaco, and Puile.
The first one is located four kilometers from the urban areas and is characterized by
having a high amount of population dedicated to the transport of forestry products. The
second one is located 200 meters from the plant, on the banks of the Cruces River, and its
divided by route five. This settlement is distinguished from other places for being
surrounded by forest plantations. The third settlement is located north of route five and
northeast to the Valdivia plant.
educational level considers the average years of attendance to school. While the red areas represent low
levels of income and education, the blue areas represent high income and high educational levels.
42
Figure 3. Settlements near the Valdivia cellulose plant
Source: Google Earth
The influence of the conflict in the Maiquillahue Bay, located in the coastal area of the
Mariquina commune, affected five settlements: Cheuque, Mehuín, Mississippi, Low and
high Mehuín, and Maiquillahue.
The first settlement is located on the beach and its population dedicates to fishing
activities and collection of marine resources. The second settlement corresponds to the
second highest populated area in Mariquina. The third settlement is a fishing cove located
south of the Lingue River and the fourth has a low population density and positions south
to the Lingue river bank. This settlement has scattered houses on top of a hill. Lastly, the
fifth settlement hosts a consolidated rural fishing cove.
43
There is a significant percentage of Mapuche population in the identified settlements.
These indigenous communities answer to the names of "Huilliches" when located in the
valley, and "Lafkenche" when located on the shore (Arcadis, 2009)8. The Mapuche
community has increased in the area by a 30% in the previous decades, reaching a 23.5%
of the Mariquina's total population (INE, 2002). This, after the enactment of the
"Indigenous Law" in 1993 stimulated the relevance of ethnic conditions, and aimed to
reduce the prejudices and discrimination of society towards these groups. This indigenous
Law granted exclusive benefits to persons and communities belonging to an ethnic group
(Arcadis, 2009).
Near the plant, these indigenous groups are mainly found in the Raluya sector in the
Rucaco settlement, and represent the 21% of the population (Arcadis, 2009).
Sector Mapuche Total population % of Mapuche
people
Rucaco 26 126 20.6
Estacion Mariquina 89 555 16
Puile 27 163 16.6
Urban Mariquina 991 7,79 12.7
Mariquina commune 4,183 18,223 23
Table 2. Indigenous population in rural communities near the plant.
Source: INE (2002)
8 In Mapudungun “Che” means land, “Huilli” means “Valley”, and “Lafken” means “sea” (Bengoa, 2000).
44
Figure 4. Settlements near the Maiquillahue Bay.
Source: Google Earth
In the Maiquillahue Bay these groups, concentrated in the Low and High Mehuín,
Maiquillahue, and Cheuque sectors, represent the 87.6, 70.6, and 59.8% of the
population, respectively (INE, 2002).
Sector Mapuche Total population % of indigenous
people
Cheuque 58 97 59.8
Mehuín (urban area) 225 1,135 19.8
Mississippi 145 349 41.5
Low and High Mehuín 155 177 87.6
Maiquillahue 101 143 70.6
Table 3. Indigenous people in rural communities near the Maiquillahue bay.
Source: INE (2002)
45
Altogether, the indigenous communities inhabiting the settlements near the plant and the
indigenous communities located in the entire study area are distributed in the
Maiquillahue Bay, Mariquina rural areas, and in Valdivia city (CONADI, 2017). The
distribution of the indigenous communities in the study area is illustrated in a polygon
map, which is divided by the census districts from Mariquina and Valdivia. The map is
displayed next to the social capital map shown before to compare the distribution of these
characteristics in the population. Altogether, the indigenous communities inhabiting the
settlements near the plant and the indigenous communities located in the entire study area
are distributed in the Maiquillahue Bay, Mariquina rural areas, and in Valdivia city
(CONADI, 2017).
Figure 5. Indigenous communities in the study area.
Source: CONADI, 2017
46
Figure 6. Social capital and indigenous communities in the study area.9
Source: CONADI, 2017.
The case study events
In 2004, the “Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion S.A”, also known as CELCO, a Chilean
multinational forestry company, built the “Valdivia plant” in the “Los Rios” region,
Chile. The plant’s investment project, which was estimated to cost over one billion
dollars, expected to produce 550.000 tons of bleached Kraft cellulose per year,10
and to
9 The map shows the districts in which the indigenous communities live. The grey color indicates that no
indigenous community inhabits that area, while the dark blue indicates a higher concentration of these
ethnic groups. The blue and dark blue areas correspond to the shore and Maiquillahue bay area. 10
The Kraft process is a process for conversion of wood into wood cellulose fibers. In some situations, the
plants that count with this process can release odorous products and produce substantial liquid wastes
(EPA, August 1993).
47
generate a chemical waste of 900 liters per second (or 77.760 m3/day) (Valdivia Project,
1995). The waste would be discharged at the Cruces River, which located 500 meters
from the plant and nurtured the Carlos Anwandter Sanctuary, placed 32 km downstream
from the project’s location.
When the idea of the project was presented in 1995,11
the plant in question was
celebrated because it promised that the arrival of this company to the region would bring
more than 5000 direct jobs for the people living in the area (Valdivia Project, 1995).
Nonetheless, when the company presented their first Environmental Impact Assessment
study (EIA) in October 1995, there were disagreements concerning the plant’s location.
The project’s EIA study, submitted voluntarily to the environmental authorities,
presented flaws in its elaboration, including a lack of studies about the water quality and
sediment characterization in the watershed of the Cruces River during the summer
months, when the stream was lower (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012)12
.
The project’s EIA study was rejected by the newly formed environmental authorities,
causing panic in the business sector and central government. The rejection also relieved
environmentalist groups that were aware of the effects that the effluents would have had
on the Cruces River (INDH, 2017). Soon after the initial rejection, a clash between those
who supported the business, the environment, and those who looked for a balance
between both, led multiple sectors to fight over their interests for over 20 years.
11
In July 4th
of 1995 the project was presented to the community of San Jose de la Mariquina
(approximately 200 people attended). The presentation was facilitated by the communes’ mayor, Rolando
Mitre, and the regions’ governor, Jorge Vives (Valdivia Project, 1995). 12
The EIA study was conducted only during Winter months, when the stream of the River is high
48
The Environmental Impact Assessment studies and resistance (1995-1999)
The national environmental institution at the time, CONAMA, and its regional branch,
the COREMA X13
, resolved that the company had not elaborated a comprehensive
impact assessment of the project, rejecting it in January, 1996 (COREMA X, 1996). This
rejection received attention from multiple groups of people. The communities and
environmentalists received it positively because they considered that the company’s EIA
study left out important information about the environmental impacts of the plant and
explicit information about the “on point technologies” that they would be using to
discharge their effluents (INDH, 2017). For the State, the rejection of the study by the
COREMA X meant two contradicting things: Even though the COREMA X did an
excellent job rejecting an incomplete EIA study of the project (especially considering that
the environmental institutions in the country were created the year before)14
, the rejection
also meant risking a billion-dollar investment and the loss of more than 5000 jobs for the
region. In addition, the country had recently regained trust from foreign investors after
the dictatorship had ended in 1990, making of the situation a much more complex issue to
grasp on (Carruthers, 2008; Camus & Hajek, 1998). For the company and its investors,
the rejection of the study meant a tremendous failure for the forestry industry and set a
before and after in the business, because now they needed to look over the environmental
institutions and regulations more carefully (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012).
13
Environmental National Comission, or “Comisión Regional del Medioambiente”. The “X” references the
region: Each region in Chile has a roman number. Since Los Rios it’s the tenth region going from North to
South, its identifier it’s the X. 14
Law Nº19.300 of the “General Bases of the Environment” was published in the official gazette (D.O.) on
March 9th
, 1994.
49
A few months after the resolution, the then-president of Chile, Eduardo Frei (1994-2000)
travelled to Valdivia to “set the first stone”15
to inaugurate the construction site for the
Valdivia plant. Frei’s actions were clarified in a public statement where he noted that “no
project will be stopped for environmental considerations.” He gave the green light to the
project, ignoring the rejection already made by the environmental authorities (Rojas,
Sabatini, & Sepulveda, 2003). Two months after the president’s visit to Valdivia, the
COREMA X changed the resolution and approved the EIA study with two conditions: to
incorporate a tertiary treatment of the plant’s effluents,16
or to move them to the sea
(Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012)17
. The company went for the second option and decided
to evaluate the environmental impacts that the discharge of the effluent would have in the
Maiquillahue Bay, located 35 km from the plant.
The Mehuín fishers from the Maiquillahue bay were worried about the possibility of
having chemicals being dumped into their sea and started a mobilization never seen
before in the Maiquillahue bay (Skewes & Guerra, 2004). These fishers, mainly local
Mapuche people called “Lafquenches” or “Persons from the sea,” were concerned about
the environmental impacts, because they considered that the company influenced the
government and the environmental institutions to get their EIA rejections changed. The
fishers took action and denied the company access to their harbor, prohibiting them from
evaluating the project's environmental impacts and viability studies (Skewes & Guerra,
15
The setting of the first stone is a traditional ceremony of various cultures in commemoration of the first
day of construction of a building or other project (RAE: http://dle.rae.es/?id=Sx1NDzh#KJGaKtS). 16
A tertiary treatment it’s the final cleaning process that improves the effluents quality before it is
discharged to the environment. The tertiary process removes the remaining inorganic compounds and
noxious substances (EPA, 1997). 17
COREMA X Exc. Resolution 001/96
50
2004). They implemented a surveillance system, which involved a night watch formed by
the fire department, school children, women, and fishers from the bay (TVN, 2011).
Without getting access to the sea, CELCO decided to assess the impacts of the effluent in
the sea with models instead of fieldwork samples and submitted their second EIA study
to the COREMA X, in August 1997. The study incorporated a 35-km pipeline that would
go from the cellulose plant to the sea. This study was also rejected by the COREMA X
because of insufficient sources and reliable methods for determining the impacts, and
because the navy organization, “DIRECTEMAR,” denied the company access to the sea
(INDH, 2017).18
19
These actions ultimately forced the company to reconsider the
inclusion of a tertiary treatment for their effluents to be discarded in the Cruces River, as
the COREMA X also offered. The people in Maiquillahue celebrated this decision and
claimed that their water and seafood’s were “free of contamination.”20
CELCO included the tertiary treatment of the effluents without incorporating the other
components that were missing from the study, and without considering a more complete
baseline regarding the possible damages to the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary. The
COREMA X approved the repairs submitted by the company,21
leaving the tertiary
treatment of the effluents as the main preventive method to avoid environmental impacts
18
The DIRECTEMAR, or “General direction of the Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine of Chile” is
an agency, branch of the Chilean army. The agency seeks to “comply with the laws and international
agreements that are in relation with the Chilean maritime territory, to protect the human life at sea, the
environment, natural resources, and regulate the activities that take place in the aquatic environment of its
jurisdiction, with the purpose of contributing to the maritime development of Chile” (DIRECTEMAR,
2017). 19
The project was rejected by Exc. Resolution Nº01/96 May 20th
of the COREMA X. 20
Footage of the surveillance techniques of the community can be seen in the following video:
https://youtu.be/VJmm6CepfcQ?t=1785 21
October 30th
, 1998. Approved RCA Exec. Resolution N°279/98 of the COREMA X.
51
in the sanctuary and adding a monitoring system of the biological communities that
inhabited the River (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). The company later asked the
CONAMA to leave the tracking of the Egeria densa and other biological communities out
of the monitoring activities, which was approved by the environmental authorities of
CONAMA.22
The Valdivia plant allocation and Cruces River contamination (2004-2007)
The actual construction of the cellulose plant happened in January 2004. The odors and
noise that came out of the plant’s construction site affected the population living
nearby,23
who complained about headaches and asthma, among other symptoms
(Pimentel & Moreira, 2004). Moreover, once the plant started its operations, it
contaminated the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary and wetland, located 32 km
downstream from the facility, causing a significant ecological disaster known in the
region (El Diario Austral, 2004a). This disaster occurred a few months after the plant
settled in the province, when the contamination of the Cruces River caused the
disappearance of the black-necked swan, an iconic bird species that inhabited the Carlos
Anwandter Sanctuary, from the region (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). This disaster
generated an alarm in the Valdivia commune (60 km south), where a citizens’ movement,
the “Acción Por los Cisnes” (from now on “AXC”) was created (in November 2, 2004) to
push the authorities to investigate about the environmental disaster in the Sanctuary
(Hunter, Open council for the swans, 2004).
22
February 4th
, 1999. Exec. Resolution Nº009 by the executive directive of CONAMA 23
The population from Mariquina and Valdivia (over 50 km south the plant) complained about strong odors
coming from the recently inaugurated plant. These complaints were register on February 26th
, March 8th
,
and July 13th
(Pimentel & Moreira, 2004).
52
The AXC collective was particularly worried about the death of the hundreds of black-
necked swans and asked the government to suspend the plant’s operation until they were
sure about their impacts and risks (Austral Valdivia, 2004a). Both, the community and
scientists, complained about the pollution, getting the CONAMA to conduct an audit to
determine what was going on in the Sanctuary (CONAMA , 2004). In November 2004,
the results, which were presented to the press and the public,24
concluded that the
company constructed a plant with the capacity for more than 685.000 tons of bleached
Kraft cellulose per year, instead of the 550.000 declared in the EIA (AXC, 2005). It was
also proved that the plant had a clandestine pipeline to discard undeclared contaminants
into the Cruces River (CONAMA, 2004).
In December 2004, the Superintendence of Sanitary Services (SISS) started two sanction
processes against the company because they were discharging manganese, arsenic, nickel
and soluble irons into the River without a permit. In addition, the SISS, CONAMA, and
representatives of the General Water Direction (DGA) also confirmed that the company
was diluting its pollutants into 70 l/s of unauthorized freshwater wells to disguise the
concentration of pollutants being dumped into the river.25
After these events were
uncovered, the AXC presented their first legal complaint against the CELCO company in
the Valdivia court of law (Austral Valdivia, 2004b).
Following these events, in January 2005, the COREMA X decided to temporarily close
the plant (Hunter, 2005), demanding CELCO to comply with the requirements of control
24
Ord. Nº1536, November 2, 2004 CONAMA. 25
Monitoring activities were conducted by the following organisms: Ord Nº1880 December 23, 2004, by
the CONAMA. Ord. Nº770 December 29, 2004, Ord. Nº190 January 13, 2005, Ord. Nº080 January 17,
2005 by the DGA. Ord. Nº014 January 18, 2005 by the SISS.
53
and monitoring conditions set in the EIA study resolution (CONAMA, January 8th 2005).
The closure lasted for a month (COREMA X, February 11th 2005), with no preventive
measures or changes implemented in the industrial process (Cooperativa, 2005; Austral
Valdivia, 2005). Simultaneously, the Sanctuary was suffering from the worst ecological
damage since its creation in 1981 (UACh, 2005a).
The scientific community and the disaster in the Sanctuary
Four months after the Valdivia plant started its operations, the wetland showed
remarkable changes: The population of black-necked swans decreased from 8000
individuals to fewer than 400 in May, 2004 (Galaz, 2006). Rangers working in the
sanctuary warned the environmental authorities and claimed that the decline of the swans
was related to the disappearance of the “luchecillo” (Egeria densa), the swans’ main food
source (Galaz, 2006).
The contamination caused by the plant modified the water quality of the river, generating
a significant increase in the levels of organic halogen compounds (OHC), sulfates,
chlorides, manganese, resin acids and aluminum, among others26
. The River and the
sanctuary were connected to wells that supplied the population with drinking water,
making the contamination of this resource a risk to human health (Moreira & Pimentel,
2004).
In November 2004, in response to the emerging citizen pressure from the AXC citizens
movement, the CONAMA hired a commission of scientists and academics from the
26
Ord. Nº 014 January 18, 2005 by the SISS.
54
“Austral University of Chile” (UACh) to determine the causes of the disaster.27
In April
18, 2005, the UACh confirmed in a final report that the contaminants produced by the
company were “sufficient to explain the disaster” (UACh, 2005a). The company denied
any responsibility, but the SISS had already notified the environmental authorities about
the sulfates found in the plant’s chemical waste. To respond to these allegations, the
company hired a study from the “Advanced Study Center of Ecology and Biodiversity”
(CASEB), and in April 25, 2005, the CASEB, member of the Pontifical Catholic
University of Chile (PUC), released a study criticizing all the claims done by the UACh
(CASEB, 2005). An ecology scholar from the University of Chile (UCh), Victor Marin,
also presented an exculpatory study mentioning that the luchecillo died because of a mix
of events that included a low in the Cruces River’s stream flows and temperature
(Delgado & Marin, 2009).
The State Defense Council (CDE),28
the collegiate body that represents public entities,
filed a lawsuit against CELCO for polluting the River and causing the decline of the
black-necked swans. The claim made by the CDE in court included a petition to close the
plant until the wetland recovered (La Tercera, 2005).
After the lawsuit, CELCO mobilized and protested along their workers in the city of
Valdivia (El Diario Austral, 2005).29
In these demonstrations, the workers and leaders of
CELCO claimed that "Nature was supposed to be at the mercy of Man and not the other
27
The study was done by a team of 20 scientists, 40 field site visits, and 15 hypothesis testing (UACh,
2005a). 28
The State Defense Council, or “CDE” is the internal collegiate body that, in use of its legal powers,
decides to take legal action or assume the defense of public entities, within the legal scope that belongs to
the institution (CDE, 2017) 29
Footage of the protest can be found in the next link: https://youtu.be/zLCEL-ZtlT0?t=1507
55
way around" (AXC, 2014). The main reason to conduct the protest was to exercise
pressure to avoid the revocation of the plant’s permit, which allowed workers to keep
their jobs (AXC, 2014).
The supreme court ruled on June 3 in CELCO’s favor accepting the company’s study,
“Iron Balance in the Cruces River discharge sector,” which they claimed was elaborated
by the EULA institute, Concepcion University. The study was fabricated, and the EULA
institute denied participation in its confection a few days after (El Mercurio, 2005b). The
institute, as they commented in their public statement, developed a sample of iron levels
from the Cruces River in their labs, but CELCO made it appear as a full academic report
on the low concentrations of iron in their effluents (Alonso & Narváez, 2005). The
supreme court considered the report, even after CELCO had rectified that they
“misquoted” the information and ruled that CELCO didn’t contaminated the River with
iron (Bellido, 2005). A number of academics from the UACh questioned this decision,
particularly because in their report, iron was not the only pollutant, and the court
completely dismissed the Aluminum and sulfates’ content in the effluent (Meneses,
2005).
In June 2005, the environmental authorities of the COREMA X, with an administrative
order coming from the president, authorized the company to unload daily loads of
aluminum (60 kilos per day), sulfates (40 tons per day) and chlorides (24 tons per day)30
.
These were the same chemicals found and sanctioned by the SISS, and which were not
30
Exc. Resolution 377/05 COREMA X to modify exc. Resolution 279/1998 of the same organism,
regulating the dumping of Aluminum, sulfates, and chlorides.
56
declared in the EIA study (El Mostrador, 2005). It is stated in the regulations and
environmental law that if the company violates the executive resolution of approval
(RCA) they have to stop their operations. But instead of moving to a closure of the plant,
the COREMA X authorized these compounds, violating the same environmental law that
allowed this institution to function (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). The authorization of
these chemicals ignored the antecedents shown in the UACh study that the same
environmental authority hired, and which showed that these compounds were the trigger
of the wetland’s disaster (UACh, April 18th 2005:204-295).
The company appealed to the decision of the COREMA X arguing that those levels were
too demanding and that it was impossible for them to meet those standards. The company
had to stop their operations,31
which caused a political crisis within the company, and
between CELCO and the government (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012).
On July 22, 2005, the COREMA X issued a new resolution32
in which they increased the
maximum daily levels of pollutants that the company could discharge into the waters of
the Cruces River. These levels went from 60 to 120 kilos of aluminum, from 40 to 60
tons of sulfates, and from 24 to 30 tons of chlorides. Along with this illegal permit to
increase the discharge of undeclared pollutants, the COREMA X asked the company to
submit an EIA with an alternative discharge to the Cruces River, in addition to reducing
its production by a 20% until they managed to move their contaminant through a pipeline
31
The plant closed voluntarily on June 8th. In addition, the CEO of CELCO, Alejandro Perez” was asked
to resign the company. 32
Exc. Resolution 461/05 COREMA X.
57
out of the river.33
In August 2005, the then Chilean president, Ricardo Lagos (2000-
2006) pointed out that the alternative to the Cruces River disposal system "could not be
other than the Sea." Soon after, the company confirmed their plans to insist with the
pipeline in the Maiquillahue Bay, reactivating the conflict with the fishers and the
Maiquillahue community.
After many episodes of violence with the people from Maiquillahue, the company
decided to compensate the fishermen that were willing to support the pipeline. The
company paid 8500 US dollars to each person that signed their “reciprocal collaboration
agreement” (TVN, 2011). In this agreement, people from the bay, mainly the fishers’
cove, received the money with the obligation to follow two impositions set by the
company: to facilitate the EIA study’s measurements and to support the pipeline once this
was built (TVN, 2011). The indigenous communities of the bay did not accept the
compensation and continued their struggle against the company, invoking their rights as
native peoples, through the “Lafquenches Law,” which protected their marine coastal
space.34
33
The COREMA X demanded the company a time limit to present the new EIA with the alternative site for
the effluents. This time limit was extended in multiple occasions, being settled in 2009, when CELCO
submitted a third EIA study that contemplates a pipeline that would go all the way into the Maiquillahue
Bay. This study got approved on February 24th
, 2010, Exc. Resolution Nº0027/10 of the COREMA XIV. 34
LAW Nº 20.249. Planning ministry. February 16th
, 2008.
58
CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH DESIGN
The present thesis attempts to qualitatively explore the role that the stakeholders’
relationships had in the production of environmental inequality in the Valdivia plant case
study.
This thesis was designed to look at the two specific timeline events concerning the
conflict in the Valdivia province. The first event revisits the EIA studies, political
decision-making process, and the resistance coming from the locals in the Maiquillahue
bay, and the “sea defense committee” that were against the pipeline that would
discharged pollutants into their sea. The second timeline of events focuses in the actual
siting of the plant, which caused the contamination of the Cruces River and affected the
human and natural environment of the Valdivia basin. Moreover, the pollution coming
from the Valdivia plant, which caused the disappearance of the black-necked swans,
prompted the emergence of the "Acción Por Los Cisnes" (AXC), also studied in this
stage of the case study.
This case was selected because the community of the Valdivia province is considered one
of the first to fight back against big companies, such as CELCO and the state, opening the
ground for recognition to communities that actively participate in environmental issues
by forcing actions in the environmental institutions (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012).
Through the case study of the Valdivia plant in Chile, this research hopes to deepen the
understanding of the social relations that influence the environment by looking at the
stakeholders’ relationships. To achieve this goal, this research was approached from a
59
case study methodology that seeks to describe certain phenomena to understand its
complex units (Della Porta & Keating, 2008). The units are portrayed by the
stakeholders’ relationships in the previously discussed events and are useful for testing
hypothesis and theoretical prepositions (George & Bennet, 2007), which in this research
considered to connection between the stakeholders’ relationships outcomes with the
theories and prepositions coming from the EIF framework and broader understandings
about the environmental inequality’s causes and explanations (Pellow, 2000).
It is important to emphasize that this thesis is oriented towards the understanding of
environmental inequality. This phenomenon occurs “when a particular social group is
burdened with environmental hazards” (Pellow, 2000). Under this framework,
environmental hazards are understood as pollution exposure, but they are also understood
as environmental wrongs, i.e., the overlooking of human health in the decision-making
process of a hazardous facility siting (Pellow, 2000).
The central analysis of the two stages of events focused on describing the multiple
relationships of the stakeholders involved, which were predefined as: The central
government, which is represented by the environmental authority; the local communities,
scholars and scientific community; and the CELCO company, owner of the Valdivia
cellulose plant.
Methodology
This thesis adopted a case study methodology and approach, which conducts a detailed
investigation about the occurrences surrounding the siting of the Valdivia plant, to
60
provide an analysis of the context and processes that illuminate the theoretical issue being
studied (Hartley, 2004).
The qualitative work presented here serves to deeply analyze the context of the
Environmental Inequality formation in the Valdivia Plant case study. To comply with
this, the thesis adapts part of a Pellow’s proposed methodology, used in his work on
transnational waste trade systems in the US (Pellow, 2007). These methods included a
literature review concerning the historical forces that shaped environmental inequality in
the study area, plus a qualitative content analysis of government documents, NGO
reports, and other relevant secondary sources of information. Furthermore, these methods
are guided by the EIF theoretical framework as part of a larger effort to uncover the
outcomes that have been shaping these territorial inequalities. Thus, both the methods and
EIF approach speak to each other to examine the structural and local forces that may have
resulted in environmental inequality in the present case study examination.
Data collection and analysis
This research was conducted using a qualitative case study methodological approach that
collected and analyzed secondary sources of information, including archival records and
historical documents concerning the Valdivia Plant siting case study, from 1994 until
2007. This data was collected and analyzed together in an iterative process that is
organized around certain topics, key themes and the central research question.
To cover that ground, the examination of websites managed by opponents and advocates
of the cellulose plant, transcripts of city councils’ meetings and public forums, official
61
reports from related ministries, business programs, EIA studies submitted by the plant’s
company, scientist reports concerning the pollution of the River, and public statements
from multiple stakeholders were coded, and analyzed. All of these sources of information
were interpreted to focus on the analytical disclosure of meaning-making practices of the
studied events. The analysis was critical to understand the intentions and actions that
influenced the environmental outcomes in the Valdivia plant case study, providing useful
framings of environmental inequality from a multistakeholder perspective (Pellow,
2000).
The data collection involved the gathering of the literature reviewed and the organization
of documents and other secondary sources that covered both stages of the case study. The
gathered sources of information were also cross-checked between different sources (e.g.
information from interview documents were cross checked with news articles and
archival records that mentioned the same events) whenever possible to improve the
information reliability.
The revision and analysis of previous literature that covered the historical facts about the
case study included the following sources, which include books, articles, and NGOs
reports35
.
35
More details about these sources can be found at the bibliography section.
62
Title Authors Year
Environmental history of Chile. Pablo Camus;
Ernst R. Hajek
1998
OLCA. Mehuín, Sustainability and
Resistance. Lessons from an Organized
Community. Latin American Observatory
of Environmental Conflicts.
OLCA 1999
The defense of the Maiquillahue Bay:
Knowledge, faith, and identity in an
Environmental conflict.
Juan Carlos Skewes 2004
The great deception: Impacts associated
with the installation of the Arauco-
Constitucion Cellulose Plant, San Jose de
la Mariquina.
Juan Moreira; Juan
Pimentel
2004
Archeology of a Conflict: Excavations in
the visual memory of the Mehuin Defense.
Debbie Guerra; Juan
Carlos Skewes; Vanesa
Naranjo; Daniela Pino;
Natalia Barria
2004
Chronological development of the
environmental conflict in the Rio Cruces
wetland, Chile's first Ramsar site.
Andres Muñoz Pedreros 2005
CELCO case: Jurisdiction of the higher
courts of justice to decide, by virtue of an
environmental protection remedy, on
technical matters, which are the
responsibility of the respective
environmental institutions.
Carol Apablaza
Cheuquepán; Carla
Hormaechea Mena
2008
Social construction of the Environment:
The citizen movement Action for the
Swans CELCO case – Valdivia.
Bárbara Oñate
Santibáñez
2009
Comfort, exclusion and lack of
environmental justice.
Hugo Romero 2009
63
Title Authors Year
Environmental conflicts and
environmental reform in Chile: An
untapped opportunity for institutional
learning about citizen participation.
Claudia Sepulveda;
Alejandro Rojas
2010
Swans conflicts, and resonance. Claudia Sepulveda;
Pablo Villarroel
2012
The SEIA in Crisis? Environmental
conflicts and citizenship
Ezio Costa
2012
Table 4. Literature review of the Valdivia plant case study
The first step to analyze the collected data involved coding the gathered information,
which was firstly done by considering the stakeholders and their relationships with others
in the Valdivia plant case study. The secondary sources were also divided according to
the following (Table 2):
Data Sources Data sources
Archival Public participation, meeting notes, minutes,
National CENSUS data, monitoring reports,
sanctions and fines.
Official Documents Stakeholders reports and documents, court
agreements, EIA studies, Laws and
regulations, Decree-Laws, environmental
resolutions
Newspaper articles and letters to the
editor
Letters to the editor and articles from the
following official newspaper: “Austral
Noticias” “El Diario Austral,” “El Mercurio,”
“La Tercera,” “Valdivia Noticias,”
“Cooperativa Online,” “Radio Biobio
Online.”
Table 5. Data sources.
The information coming from all sources, including notes, key documents, and tabulated
materials, were stored in a Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software
64
(CAQDAS), Nvivo, which organized the information in bins divided by stakeholders,
timeline, and sources of information (Table 3)36
.
In addition to the creation of the bins, the CAQDAS program facilitated the recording of
source details, time and date of the data collected. Moreover, the collected data were
broken down into manageable pieces through coding techniques.
Table 6. Sources of information and documentation per stakeholder.
The coding was done after reading and reviewing the relevant collected data. The
summary of these readings was reorganized as preliminary memos that were later used to
formulate the first categories, themes, and relationships between the identified
stakeholders. The coding process incorporated three levels of abstraction, as described by
Baskarada (2013). The first one contemplated a descriptive coding technique, which
included the broad topics that were of interested in this thesis, such as the identification
and description of the stakeholders’ interests. The second one comprised a topic coding
technique, which included the information that became apparent once the data collected
was firstly analyzed in the previous stage. This topic coding method was important to
36
Details of these sources can be found in Appendix A.
Stakeholders/
n º sources
CELCO Community and
Environmentalist
Scientist and scholars State
authorities
Archival
records
5 34 4
Documentary 2
Documents 9 2 4 9
newspaper
article
21 22 6 13
Total 35 61 10 28
65
reorganize the situations and outcomes of the stakeholders’ relationships. The third level
of coding abstraction incorporated the analytical coding technique, which was used to
include the coded data into a more abstract framework to relate the results with the EJ
extended theoretical framework.
In addition, the framing of the stakeholders was done using Mitchell, Agle, and Wood’s
“model of stakeholders’ identification and salience” (1997), to obtain the level of
influence of each stakeholder in the case study events. In the model, the authors define
stakeholders as "actors, internal and external, that affect or are affected, in different
degrees, by the objectives or results of a given organization. This happens if they possess
three basic attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency" (Bernal et al., 2012:260).
the attributes (power, legitimacy, urgency) are interpreted and assessed accordingly to the
collected data about the stakeholders’ interests, backgrounds and influence in the
production of environmental inequality.
In the model, power is understood as the capacity or possibility that stakeholders have to
gain resources, which could be coercive, i.e., arms, strength, technology, money, raw
materials; or symbolic, i.e., prestige, esteem, or charisma (Mitchel, Agle, & Wood, 1997).
In the model, the notion of “sensibility” also plays a role in the definition of power. When
stakeholders lack one of the abovementioned resources, they develop a stronger
sensibility towards the stakeholders that, on the contrary, have plenty of that same
resource (Mitchel, Agle, & Wood, 1997).
The legitimacy attribute is contemplated as a perception about the actions of a social
actor. These actions have to be appropriate within a certain system that shares the same
66
norms, values, beliefs, and definitions (Mitchel, Agle, & Wood, 1997). An example of
the latter might be that, if a company pollutes the environment, those actions might not be
desirable for other stakeholders, taking them legitimacy from the polluting act.
The urgency attribute reflects the immediate claim towards a situation. This urgency also
represents a critique, which is equivalent to the importance of the claim considering the
possibility of harm to the stakeholder’s property, feelings, expectations or exposure
(Mitchel, Agle, & Wood, 1997).
The levels of influence were determined according to the number of attributes the
stakeholders possess in the conflict. In other words, if a stakeholder has power,
legitimacy, and urgency, his influence will be permanent. On the contrary, if a
stakeholder only has legitimacy, the level of influence will be low or latent (Mitchel,
Agle, & Wood, 1997). If a stakeholder has two of the attributes, the influence level is
“expectant,” which means that these stakeholders are waiting to gain the third missing
attribute to become powerful and influential.
Accordingly, the seven levels of influence include the following: Dormant (1),
Demanding (2), Discretionary (3), Dangerous (4), Dominant (5), Dependent (6), and
Definitive (7)
67
Figure 7. Level of interest per attribute
Source: Mitchel, Agle & Wood (1997).
The dormant subcategory (1) references a stakeholder that has power, but no legitimacy
or urgency. To provide an example, this type of stakeholder could include a company that
has money, but it is not legitimized by other actors to gain influence, and does not
possess urgency, in the sense that it is not attracting attention from other stakeholders.
The demanding type (2) includes those stakeholders that possess the “urgency” attribute,
but don’t have power and aren’t legitimized. The discrete stakeholders (3) are those that
don’t have the power or the urgency but possess legitimacy. An example of these
stakeholders could be an NGO or a charity. The dangerous stakeholders (4) are those that
have power and urgency. While these have no legitimacy, they can use their claims and
resources to act “dangerously.” In a few examples provided by Falcao and Fontes (1999),
these stakeholders’ actions included strikes, sabotages, or even hostile takeovers (Falcao
& Fontes, 1999).
4
7
6
5
2 3
1
68
The dominant stakeholder (5) possesses power and legitimacy, and no claim of urgency
because this actor is usually the strongest. Meanwhile, dependent stakeholders (6) have
urgency and legitimacy without power. These stakeholders depend on the power of others
to ensure their interests are being addressed and not marginalized. An example of these
type of stakeholders is a local community that could be having urgency claims towards a
dominant stakeholder, while looking for support in a dormant government. Lastly, the
definitive stakeholder (7) possesses the three attributes and is prioritized over any other
actor or stakeholder involved in the conflict (Mitchel, Agle, & Wood, 1997).
These subcategories of stakeholders and level of influence they had in the Valdivia plant
conflict were done considering their role in both examined timelines of events included in
this research.
The qualitative findings of this thesis incorporated all of the sources to form a
comprehensive story about the environmental inequalities and the local and structural
forces behind them in the case study. Extensive explanations about these environmental
inequalities are explored in the following results section.
69
CHAPTER 5. RESULTS
The thesis main research problem and question asks: How do the stakeholders'
relationships produce environmental inequalities in the Valdivia plant case study?
This question is answered in this chapter using Pellow’s EIF model (2000), and is
addressed by examining the following sub-questions: Who are these stakeholders and
what do they want? How do these stakeholders negotiate different environmental
outcomes in the case study? And lastly, how do Environmental Inequalities unfold as an
outcome of these stakeholders' relationships?
This thesis results section presents how these struggles firstly revealed the active role and
power that communities previously referred to as “victims” took in the Valdivia plant
case study. Secondly, showed the different environmental outcomes that these struggles
had in two geographical settings; and thirdly, uncovered the underlying causes of
environmental inequality to explain how these unfolded in the Valdivia plant case study.
Who are the stakeholders and what do they want?
This question was answered by firstly developing a timeline of the most relevant events
from both stages of the case study (figure 8 and 10). The main stakeholders appeared
from these events and were framed within broader categories, such as producers, the
state, and the communities, but after the revision and interpretation of the secondary
sources, these categories were modified to include citizens’ movements instead of the
entire community of the impacted region. The scientific and academic community was
also incorporated as a stakeholder.
70
The main findings from this sub-question examines the stakeholders’ interests and power
dynamics to characterize them accordingly to their influence and active participation in
the events that conform the Valdivia plant case study.
According to the first events that represent the case study, which occurred with the
formulation of the first and second EIA study of the Valdivia plant, the main stakeholders
were categorized as the company (CELCO), the state, and the “sea defense committee”
formed in the Maiquillahue Bay. During the second period of events, and once CELCO
had already built the plant with a tertiary treatment of the effluents in Mariquina, the
relevant stakeholders were coded to include the company, the environmental institutions,
the citizens’ movement formed in the Valdivia commune (AXC), and the scientific and
academic community.
The stakeholders' identification within the first level of coding abstraction, resulted in 4
major categories and characterizations according to their interests and power dynamics.
The company
The first one recognizes that the company, CELCO, needed to maintain access to the
environment to continue the extraction and production of primary and secondary
materials in the forestry business. The coding of this category was done considering the
documents and archival records developed by CELCO, in which the same company
defended their actions (CELCO, 2005). The reviewed documents showed this
stakeholder’s interests and considered its monetary power and capacity to generate jobs
for people. Furthermore, the company's statements concerning their involvement with
71
the affected communities about the contamination of the river indicated that CELCO used
the "good neighbor" approach to claim that they had nothing to do with the pollution
because their plant was clean. Still, they would do "anything in their power to help
recovering the wetlands' previous state," agreeing to participate in an integral
Management Plan for the Sanctuary and wetland (WWF, 2005). According to the
sustainability reports of the plant, the company stated that:
During 2004 the C. Anwandter Nature Sanctuary showed a reduction of the
aquatic plant called Elodea (Egeria densa, a non-native plant introduced in the
area), which caused a mass migration of the black-necked swan population
(Cygnus melancoryphus) as well as the death of some specimens. In 2004
ARAUCO performed several studies on the wetland ecosystem including quality
and toxicity of effluents, the interrelation between effluents and the environment
and other research to determine the causes of the reduction of Elodea. None of
these studies found evidence indicating that the Valdivia Mill effluents have
affected the Nature Sanctuary. The company is convinced that the reduction of
Elodea is not related to the Valdivia Mill operation (CELCO, 2005).
However, the literature shows that the high environmental risks in their start-up phase,
insufficient controls, and inadequate monitoring from the company's side provoked the
contamination of the River (WWF, 2005). However, the company didn't claim
responsibility until 2013.
CELCO corresponds to the leading actor regarding interests, considering that it is the
owner of the Valdivia Plant and oversees the billion-dollar investment made by the
company in the region. The company characterizes for being the actor with the most
significant capacity for mobilizing resources and lobbying with political authorities, at
both the regional and national levels.
72
Figure 8. Stakeholders’ involvement during 1995 and 1999.
73
Figure 9. Stakeholders’ involvement during 2004 and 2007.
74
An example of the latter was the millionaire negotiation that they managed to carry out
with a part of the Mehuín community, with whom CELCO celebrated a "Collaboration
Agreement." Other examples include the public endorsements made by former presidents
Eduardo Frei and Ricardo Lagos to the company, in 1996 and 2005. The company
presents the attributes of power, by counting with coercive resources; and also,
legitimacy, by being acknowledged as a world-class industry in the region and the
country. By these parameters CELCO would be a dominant stakeholder.
In some events CELCO presented attributes of urgency (e.g., the worker's protests, the
company’s voluntary closure), where they achieved more things from the environmental
authorities and citizens’ movements. First, when the plant closed its facilities the
authority relaxed the environmental parameters, so the company could return to its
production cycle. Second, the workers claimed that the AXC citizens’ movement was
trying to take away their jobs, taking their legitimacy and attention.
In summary, CELCO was classified as a dominant stakeholder, except in the cases where
it presented urgent demands, where it was defined as a definitive stakeholder.
75
Figure 10. CELCO’s influence.
The state
The second one, which included the data collected and coded from the state and the
environmental authorities, resulted in the struggle of the institution to balance the
conflicting needs of the environment and the economy and to maintain its authority and
legitimacy. These results considered statements and archival records in which the state
and environmental authorities were completely sided with CELCO, and others in which
the state declared the war against pollution, targeting CELCO for its contaminants and
effluents. These statements included an initial support to the plant’s project, which was
presented to the Maiquillahue bay's community as a clean, low risk and pollution-free
endeavor. However, after the air and water pollution that deteriorated the region and the
Sanctuary, even the Chilean president of the time, who was an ally to CELCO in other
occasions, noted that "the company damaged the country's credibility" (El Mercurio,
2005).
The state and environmental institutions, were identified in this section as influential.
However, the influence that they practice is problematic. These actors, the state and
Power
Legitimacy Urgency
76
environmental authorities, have power but permeable to political influence and interest
groups. The COREMA X represents these characteristics when the organism exceeds its
functions and resolve politically in favor of the interest of the Executive Power and the
company CELCO. However, they also rejected the EIA studies presented by CELCO and
hired scientific reports to clarify who polluted the Rio Cruces, responding to pressures
from citizen movements from Valdivia. The environmental authority understood as part
of the state’s body, has both the attribute of power and legitimacy, being identified as a
dominant stakeholder. However, during the first events and opposition from the
Maiquillahue community, the sea defense committee delegitimized the state body,
remaining outside of the environmental regulations and the EIA evaluation system.
Hence, in these occasions the government was a dormant stakeholder.
Figure 11. The state and environmental authorities influence.
The citizens movements
The collected data from the citizens' movements was coded considering these
stakeholders claims for jobs, clean air, monetary compensation, participation in the
decision-making process, autonomy, and justice for the environment and its people. Their
Power
Legitimacy Urgency
77
interests were coded differently in both stages but reflected their opposition and struggle
mainly against CELCO, and secondarily against the state. The coding of the Maiquillahue
Bay’s actions included surveillance tactics used to avoid contact with the company and
the state, and educational outreach about the plant's impact around the community. The
coding of the activities of the AXC movement included mainly legal actions and dialogue
with the state authorities (Skewes, 2004; Skewes & Guerra, 2004).
The committee was the primary opponent of the pipeline that would discard the plant’s
effluents in the sea. Since the plant’s project had received official political support from
the President Frei, the people of Mehuín considered that the CELCO pipeline was already
approved, so taking part of the EIA assessment would only legitimize that decision. The
community recognized CELCO as a powerful entity, reaching a state of sensitive to that
power. However, they still claimed urgency concerning their sea resources, and the
people from the bay realized they needed to convince people about their struggle, to gain
influence. When they presented their uncertainties about the CELCO’s project to the
DIRECTEMAR, and their claims were considered, they gained legitimacy and power.
They gained legitimacy because the navy trusted their practical knowledge concerning
the preservation of the bay, and they gained power by proxy because the navy was the
authority in charge of granting the permission to use the maritime territory. The
DIRECTEMAR denied CELCO the permit to work in the sea, and because of that, the
community of Maiquillahue reached the status of a definitive stakeholder, stopping the
plant from discharging its effluents in the Maiquillahue territory.
78
Figure 12. The “sea defense” committee influence.
The "AXC" movement it is one of the resisting actors of the second timeline of events
examined in this thesis. The movement, which appeared after the pollution of the Nature
Sanctuary, represents the feeling of the Valdivian people. The movement accused
CELCO for being the main responsible of the pollution of the Cruces River and
mobilized to get the company's permit revoked. Between other interests, the group also
focused on the recovery of the Nature Sanctuary. The influence attributes of this
movement included urgency, both towards the access to environmental decision-making,
and the restoration of the wetland. The movement was identified as a demanding
stakeholder. However, if they had managed to win any of the appeals that they filed at
court, the AXC movement would have consolidated itself as a dangerous stakeholder,
understanding this stakeholder as a highly influential stakeholder that would have been
able to cause a definitive closure of the plant. Moreover, in some occasions the
environmental authority legitimized the demands of the citizens’ movement and
supervised CELCO more actively. During these events AXC was understood as a
dependent stakeholder of the State and the environmental authority.
Power
Legitimacy Urgency
79
Figure 13. AXC influence
Lastly, the data collected from the scientific and scholars’ community was included in the
case study because of these stakeholders’ participation and capacity to provide
information about the risks of hazardous discharge of pollutants into the Cruces River.
These actors gained influence particularly when the COREMA ask them to determine the
causes of the contamination of the Nature Sanctuary. The job was taken by the UACh and
given that their report blamed CELCO for increasing the levels of heavy metals in the
Cruces River and wetland, and for decimating an entire species of black-necked swans,
the UACh became a relevant actor in the conflict.
The scientists and academic community
These actors gained influence particularly when the COREMA ask them to scientifically
determine the causes of the contamination of the Nature Sanctuary. The job was taken by
the UACh in 2005.
Given that their report blamed CELCO for increasing the levels of heavy metals in the
wetland and for decimating an entire species of black-necked swans, the UACh became a
Power
Legitimacy Urgency
80
relevant actor in the conflict. However, the company exercises their power, hire new
studies that could refute the thesis originated from the UACh.
The university influenced the conflict by claiming urgency about the damage of the
wetland. The institution was also legitimized for being the home university of the region.
Nonetheless, the scientific establishment was pervaded by CELCO and its mobilization
of resources to refute the University's report, provoking a loss in power, diminishing their
legitimacy.
Ultimately, it was determined that the scientific community and academics correspond to
a dependent stakeholder. To achieve full influence in the conflict these scientific and
academic institutions required another stakeholder with power, to be validated. The latter
would have been the case if the COREMA had reacted and use the results of the UACh’s
report once these delivered the products that blamed CELCO for contaminating the
River. However, they didn’t.
Figure 14. The scientists and academic community influence
Power
Legitimacy Urgency
81
How do these stakeholders negotiate different environmental outcomes in the case
study?
The second level of coding abstraction showed that the different environmental outcome
in the geographical settings of the Maiquillahue Bay and the Cruces River included a
coincidence component, race explanations, and issues concerning the access to local
knowledge versus scientific knowledge.
Accidental component
The abstraction of the coding techniques after the analysis of the gathered data found that
the accidental component of the siting of the hazardous facilities played an important role
in determining the different environmental outcome in both geographical locations. In the
Maiquillahue Bay, the analyzed documents showed pivotal moments that differentiated
this community from others. These results and analysis show that the behavior of the
state and the company towards the community fueled the movement when two events
happened. First, when the environmental authorities rejected the EIA project submitted
by CELCO, but then changed the resolution approving the study with the condition of
changing the stationary point of the effluents, the community in Maiquillahue distrusted
the government, and wanted anything to do with them (TVN, 2011). For the
Maiquillahue Bay's community, the EIA studies were just a formality to get the
company’s investment projects approved, so they excluded themselves from the SEIA
system (Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). Second, back in 1995, the consultants hired by
CELCO arrived at the bay saying that the company wanted to evaluate the soil to make
improvements in what is known as "the barra," a fishing zone. The fishers from
82
Maiquillahue were happy about the possible improvement and invited the consultants to a
party with the entire town. As discussed in the literature review, one of the consultants
had too many drinks and admitted that the improvements of the barra were a lie and
explained that they were there to take samples to update de company's EIA study to build
a waste pipeline in their shore (TVN, 2011). This deception generated distrust and
paranoia in the community. The consultants were kicked out of the bay, and the town
implemented a 24/7 watch to prevent any EIA study to ever be conducted in the area.
Whenever CELCO tried to enter the harbor, the sea defense movement would close the
road with barricades or got into the sea in their fishing ships to prevent CELCO from
entering their territory (TVN, 2011).
The siting of the plant in Mariquina, on the contrary, was presented to the community in a
public forum, in which the members of the community celebrated the arrival of jobs and
dynamism to the region (Valdivia Project, 1995).
These findings conclude that there was a coincidence component that allowed the
Maiquillahue Bay to have a different environmental outcome in comparison to the
Valdivia plant's nearer communities. If the consultants had remained quiet about their
real activities in the bay, there is a possibility that the environmental outcomes would
have been different.
83
Race
The race component found in these results show that there were three major arguments
that contemplated this factor as relevant when discussing the different environmental
inequality formation between the Maiquillahue Bay and the Cruces River basin
The first argument conveys the level of organization of the indigenous communities.
According to Skewes, the relation that the indigenous groups in the Maiquillahue Bay
had with their cultural heritage was strongly related to their coastal identity. This
profound sense of identity as a coastal community resulted in high levels of organization
and unity in the movement, which allowed them to stay together to resist the company's
pipeline (Skewes, 2004).
A second argument was found to have relation to the indigenous meanings and
understandings about the environment. Representatives from the Maiquillahue bay'
community claimed that:
The Mapuche culture and language derive from nature, and this language, which
comes from our natural resources, are right here. It is a language that comes from the
ocean. What would it be not to defend these places? It would be as if culturally dying
(excerpt of a conversation with Boris Hualme, in Skewes & Guerra, 2004:225).
The understandings about their natural environment gave them strength in their struggle
against the pipeline and further differentiated them from the communities that inhabited
near the Valdivia plant. For instance, to reach consensus, CELCO offered the
Maiquillahue Bay one million dollars in infrastructure, labor dynamism, and other job
opportunities. The community felt insulted for being asked to lose their identity and
84
change their ways of life and claimed that they would never receive money from the
company (Sea defense Committee, 1996).
The third and last argument refers to the indigenous movement's 500 years of struggle
against the state and corporations (Carruthers, 2008; Carruthers & Rodriguez, 2009). For
some of the members of the Lafkenche community, the struggle against CELCO was no
different than the claims of autonomy that they were demanding for over centuries in
their territory (Skewes & Guerra, 2004). The people from the bay claimed that the fight
against CELCO was one of many (Skewes, 2004). Moreover, the indigenous
communities in Chile have received recognition thanks to the involvement of
international organizations, such as the ILO. Chilean indigenous communities are
protected by international native laws, which allow them to claim their rights for access
to any decision-making process concerning their territory (CONADI, 2017). When this
access is denied, indigenous communities such as the one in Maiquillahue Bay, have
more leverage to litigate in comparison to regular communities (Carruthers & Rodriguez,
2009).
Local knowledge v. scientific knowledge
The people from the Maiquillahue Bay knew that the bay’s outsiders would understand
their fight if presented with scientific arguments, so one of the leaders of the movement,
Teresa Castro, researched the pollution from other cellulose plants in the world. She
discovered that local marine species would be affected by the chlorine contained in the
effluents (El Diario Austral, 1997). Moreover, due to the tidal regime, ocean depth and
strong winds, Castro determined that the bay would have to spend more than 20 years to
85
recover from this type of pollution (Skewes & Guerra, 2004). Teresa Castro, and other
members of the “sea defense” movement, explained these scientific arguments and
possible outcomes to the DIRECTEMAR, convincing them about the hazards (Skewes &
Guerra, 2004). Later on, the same institution denied CELCO access to the bay, unless
they conducted a comprehensive study that included the oceanographic currents, water
columns, and biological communities of the bay (Skewes, 2004). This was impossible to
achieve as long as the Maiquillahue people stayed united against them.
The EIA studies elaborated by CELCO were never contested in the Cruces River basin,
and the plant was built without any mayor opposition. In addition, the inability of the
company to conduct the EIA study at the bay allowed their second EIA, which
incorporated the tertiary treatment of the effluents discarded in the Cruces river, to get
approved with less regulations and scientific rigorosity about the environmental impacts
in the River. One clear example was the elimination of the monitoring activities for the
Egeria densa. According to scholars from the UACh, the monitoring of this alga would
have avoided the pollution in the Cruces River (Muñoz, 2005). The scientist and scholar,
Eduardo Jaramillo, principal investigator in the UACh report, mentioned that "It was an
error of the CONAMA to leave this variable outside the activities, because the biological
communities are the best indicator of possible contamination” (Muñoz, 2005).
It is important to note in this section of results that, while local knowledge provided more
rigorous examination and research about the effects that the effluents would have in their
environment, scientific knowledge, usually provided by the company and the state, didn’t
provided a serious work and impact assessment, and on the contrary, they focused in the
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materialization of the Valdivia plant project, differentiating these types of knowledge
production in both settings. This firstly because during the Maiquillahue conflict, the
company and the state’s knowledge (in the form of the EIA studies) were not available,
and local knowledge gained traction and received scientific recognition; secondly,
because during the swans’ catastrophe research, the knowledge production of EIA
studies, and other academic work, were manipulated to protect and ensure the plant’s
production and economic performance.
How did Environmental inequalities unfold as an outcome of these stakeholders’
relationships?
Following Pellow's definition of Environmental Inequality (2000), which is produced
when "different stakeholders struggle for access to valuable resources within a political
economy in which the benefits and burdens of those resources become unevenly
distributed," the analysis of the gathered data and third level of coding abstraction
showed that the stakeholders' relationships were producing environmental inequality.
This was explained looking at the structural and local forces that resulted to be linked to
the unequal access to decision-making processes, the historical facts behind the
implementation of environmental laws and regulations, and the lack of access to
scientific knowledge production of ecological impacts.
Unequal access to decision-making processes
The environmental authorities and their impact assessment and evaluation system (SEIA)
have operated as the only conduit by which the uses of the territory are being decided
(Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). This has been performed on a "case-by-case" basis
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mediated by the investors who have had the advantage of proposing the location of their
projects without the responsibility of environmentally assessing alternatives, as in the
case of the EPA in the US (Tecklin, Bauer, & Prieto, 2011). Moreover, the current system
excludes most of the people from the decision-making process because the opportunities
of involvement are placed at the end of the process, when all the important decisions
regarding location, scale, and technology have already been made (Sepúlveda &
Villarroel, 2012). The AXC citizens' movement was formed in response to this lack of
participation. Actions were agreed upon and organized inside of the AXC, where the
objectives of the group were four:
Support the search for the truth about the causes of the disaster; Inform citizens,
authorities and local opinion groups about the disaster and its causes; Take legal
action and citizen mobilization; and systematize and disseminate information to
assess the gravity of the disaster and repair its causes (AXC, 2004).
The AXC movement stated from the beginning that the "Angelini Star" forestry company
was the sole responsible for what happened to the swans (La Nación, 2004). Acting in
coordination, and with full knowledge of the law, the movement presented claims to the
court on several occasions. The latter led by the lawyer of the AXC movement, Vladimir
Riesco (Austral Valdivia, 2004b). By submitting protection claims against the company
and its executives, the AXC was actively looking to get a reversal of the RCA of the
plants' project (AXC, 2014). However, the claims they filed to the court rejected the
option of a revocation of the RCA, because the court stated that the company had already
been fined accordingly. Nevertheless, the movement’s members manage to put
themselves in the discussion and in the decision-making process surrounding the
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environmental impacts of the region, by elaborating reports and documentation about the
company's infractions and transgressions, and by influencing the state authorities
(Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012; AXC, 2005). Still, there was something wrong with the
environmental laws and regulations.
Environmental Laws and regulations
The lack of environmental protection was visible in this case study. Even when the first
EIA submitted by CELCO to the environmental authorities was rejected, the Chilean
president at the time, Eduardo Frei, endorsed the plant, forcing the technical committee of
the COREMA X to reconsider their decision, showing a fragile and permeable
environmental institution, and an even a more skeptical public (Sepúlveda & Villarroel,
2012). This section presents a relevant historical finding related to the structural and local
forces that produced environmental inequalities by looking at the formulation of the
environmental institutions in Chile.
In the 1970s, an economic policy based on free-market doctrines was initiated in Chile
(Harvey, 2007). The new development strategy sought economic growth through the
deregulation of the economy and openness to foreign trade (Kay, 2002) The most
characteristic measures of the new development style was the substantial reduction of
tariff protection and the incentive of participation coming from foreign capital in
domestic economic affairs (Torres et al., 2015). The ongoing process also included the
decline of the State's participation in the productive development of the country and the
progressive privatization of its companies. In the forestry sector, the native forest was
considered as a renewable natural resource that was called to contribute notably to the
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economic development of the country (Kay, 2002). Moreover, it was argued that forestry
activities were one of the most sustainable practices because the reforestation of
thousands of hectares in an advanced erosion process would have allowed the recovery of
these soils, increasing their value and productivity, and incorporating them to the
economic development (Susaeta & Benedetti, 1990). Furthermore, the development of
environmental awareness in Chile allowed the inclusion of the Article 19 No. 8 in the
1980 Constitution, which "assures all people the right to live in a pollution-free
environment" (Ministerio del Interior, 1980). This law stablished specific restrictions on
the exercise of certain rights and freedoms to protect the environment. The presidential
elections of 1989 and the installation of the democratic government of Patricio Aylwin
(1990-1994), allowed the Country to define a new period in the environmental history of
Chile (Camus & Hajek, 1998).
Citizens and media worries about the environment became more intense at the end of the
1980s, however the principles that guided the country's environmental policy were those
of economic stability. The environmental authorities were seeking not to discourage the
economic development by gradually incorporating the ecological dimension in
reasonable terms when considering both the magnitude of the environmental problems
and the form and opportunity in which they were approached (Camus & Hajek, 1998).
By these political principles, on June 5, 1990, the President of Chile signed the Decree-
Law that created the National Commission of the Environment (CONAMA). This
Commission was responsible for defining an environmental policy and institutional
framework for the country (BCN, 1994). In the legislative aspect, the CONAMA, aware
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of the vast amount and dispersion of legal norms with environmental relevance in the
country, carried out a complete inventory that allowed to fully identify the norms related
to the environment (Camus & Hajek, 1998). The CONAMA also started the "Law on
General Bases on the Environment." This Law, Nº19.300, was published on March 9,
1994, and it created the new structure of the National Commission of the Environment
(CONAMA) (Presidential Message, 1992).
One of the first initiatives of the CONAMA was to incorporate the environmental
dimension in the ministries' management and to generate coordination aimed at
integrating and strengthening the sectoral capacity of each ministry or State institution
that had environmental topics in their statutes. In addition, this agency initiated an
environmental impact evaluation program, which, despite not being mandatory, began to
be applied by the ministries in their investment projects, according to the "Presidential
Instructions for the environmental evaluation of investment projects" among other studies
and texts of support elaborated by this institution (Presidential Message, 1992).
Chile managed to base its growth toward the ends of the 1970s in the market economy.
Since then, the development of the external sector of the economy has maintained a rate
of permanent increase (Camus & Hajek, 1998). Moreover, “the dynamic growth, together
with a very orthodox and obsessive neoliberal economic policy [in Chile], was associated
with a weak environmental protection in sectors such as mining, cellulose, fishing,
forestry and fruit production" (Alvarado, 1995).
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Knowledge production and access to the truth
Access to scientific knowledge and its production in Environmental impacts is not always
possible, and it was found that the struggle surrounding truth produced environmental
inequality in the study area. At the same time, power affects who produces the legitimate
knowledge. Examples of both locations explain this more generally and in relation to the
power dynamics between the stakeholders and the functioning of this institution (SEIA)
and the neoliberal state.
Concerning the EIA evaluation process and its creation, the president of the republic,
Patricio Aylwin, addressed the following in his presidential message:
The project has gradualism as an inspiring principle, and it does not intend to require
from one day to the other the most demanding environmental standards, nor to
subject all the activities of the country, regardless of their size, to the environmental
impact assessment procedures. Nor does it intend to contain all the environmental
provisions that need to be created. On the contrary, the intention is to begin a process
of environmental regulation, of which this is the first step, but there are still many
more to be done. Consequently, it will only give the general framework that will be
applicable to all activities or resources in which, subsequently, a special legislation
will be created. In this way, the appropriate framework is created so that,
immediately after the project has been dispatched, we can begin to discuss, for
example, a law on air quality. The evaluation process will not claim that all projects,
of any nature and scope, are subject to the environmental impact assessment system,
since neither the public nor the private sector are prepared to face a challenge of that
nature (Presidential Message, 1992).
Following this principle, in November 2004, the national director of the CONAMA (in
charge of the already approved EIA studies of the plant) hired the UACh to conduct a
scientific study about the causes of the massive death and migration of the black-necked
swans from the wetland. This action was pursued only as a result of the AXC
movements’ pressures to the institution. The scientists and academics from the university
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delivered the final report in April 2005, concluding that the discharges from the plant
were the ones that contaminated the stream of the Cruces River, provoking the death and
migration of the black-necked swan (UACh, 2005a). However, the CASEB contrasted the
results, along with other scientific and academic organizations, downplaying the work
done by the UACh. The CASEB argued that among the 37 conclusions determined by the
UACh, only nine were right, 13 were not, and 15 were doubtful (CASEB, 2005). The
UACh responded to the report commenting that the work done by the CASEB was barely
a study. It didn't presented samples, or analysis of visits to the wetland, and provided only
comments, and no new data, to the results of the scientific report made by the UACh.
It was later found that the CASEB was hired by CELCO, discovering how pervasive
knowledge production of environmental impacts and risks can be in this case study.
Moreover, the scientific and academic community felt that the environmental institution
was in debt with the truth in their organization (UACh, 2005b).
The report and study conducted by the UACh were validated by the CDE to lead a
lawsuit against CELCO (El Ciudadano, 2006). But even then, the inclusion and
validation of counter-studies were legitimized by the Supreme Court at the trial against
CELCO. The Supreme Court exonerated the company based on a fabricated report that
exculpated CELCO from being responsible for the pollution of the River (EULA, 2005).
The report, which was allegedly written by the EULA institute of the Conception
University, argued that the effluents did not presented an excess of iron, the compound
found in the dead swans' bodies. After the ruling in the company’s favor, CELCO
admitted that they made a mistake with the quotations of the report, which was written by
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them, not the EULA institute (Duran, 2005). Still, the supreme court did not change the
ruling, and CELCO continued their activities (OLCA, 2005).It was found that the UACh
struggled to validate their report showing how the environmental regulations and
institutions were design to support the materialization of investment projects in the
country, and to keep social actors not only outside of the decision-making process, but
also outside of the knowledge production system, where their understandings are not
considered unless they are aligned with the neoliberal model of production, characteristic
of Chile.
As a summary of the results, the analysis of the collected and analyzed data revealed that:
firstly, the stakeholders' participation was not passive; secondly, the identification of the
factors that allowed different environmental outcomes to happen in the Maiquillahue Bay
and in the Cruces River included an accidental component, different emphasizes in
local/practical knowledge and scientific knowledge, and racial discrimination
explanations; and thirdly, the linkages between the stakeholders' relationships showed
that the unequal access to decision-making processes, the historical context of the
Chilean environmental laws and regulations, and the lack of access to knowledge
production, were relevant to explain the structural and local forces that produced
environmental inequality in the case study.
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CHAPTER 6. DISCUSSION
This thesis aim was to examine the Environmental Inequality produced in the Valdivia
plant case study, doing so by qualitatively assessing two stages of events inside the case
study with the help of secondary sources of information. The examined events were
useful to identify the stakeholders' relationships and to determine: 1) their interest and
actions, 2) their different outcomes in two geographical spaces, and 3), the structural and
local forces that moved them to co-produce environmental inequality in the study area.
This chapter reiterates this thesis' research problem and hypotheses to answer the research
question, discuss and interpret the results, and connect this thesis' findings with other
similar studies. Moreover, this section will conclude with the study's limitations, a
summary of the key findings, and further research opportunities to cover these research
topics.
The examination of the Valdivia plant’ case study showed that the company´s
environmental responsibility, the market dynamics, and the relative lightweight of the
environmental law in comparison to other laws, e.g., private property laws, were the
principal worries reflected in this case study (Garcia et al., 2006). According to Garcia et
al. (2006) the Valdivia plant was considered particularly problematic because of the
political nature of the decision-making process.
The identified stakeholders
Starting with the first sub-question and considering the multistakeholder perspective from
Pellow’s EIF model, this thesis' first hypotheses seek to find that the stakeholders
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involved in the case study are not inserted in a simple perpetrator-victim scenario, but
that instead, they participate actively in the formation of environmental inequality. This is
found to be true, mainly when looking at the analyzed events. These show political
intervention, alliances, negotiations, and resistance practices between the identified
stakeholders; all of which can avoid or produce environmental inequalities, according to
their levels of influence (Mitchel, Agle, & Wood, 1997). Pellow paid attention to the
multistakeholder activity in his work on "Environmental Inequalities Formation," where
he applied his model in the case study of the Chicago WMI recycling plant (Pellow,
2000). He determined that the negotiation and collaboration between stakeholders,
independently from their race or income, provoked environmental inequality outcomes
inside the workplace of the recycling plant. In Pellow’s case, only one group of
stakeholders was burdened with uneven exposure to environmental hazards: the workers
of the plant. Coincidently, these were the only group left out of the decision-making
process concerning the recycling plant, who celebrated a collaborative approach between
the company, state, environmentalist and the community (Pellow, 1999; 2000). EJ studies
document these situations, paying attention to this deliberative/non-deliberative
consideration of some stakeholders over others.
Many EJ scholars argue that there are sociopolitical explanations that elucidate that
power dynamics, in the context of unjust decision-making processes, exclude the
communities that are weak in comparison to those who are strong (Camacho, 1998;
Mohai et al., 2009).
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In Pellow's case study, these "weak" workers were the ones who started the resistance to
the plant's activity, achieving compensations, litigations, and penalties against the
recycling plant because of the dangers associated to the workers’ occupational hazards
(Pellow, 2000). These events are important for many reasons: the relationships between
stakeholders produce environmental inequalities at the moment they do not consider all
of the actors that may be affected by an environmental decision. Moreover, in these
relationships, resistances practices from one of the left-out groups are bound to happen,
and they are critical to moving the scale down or up in the production of environmental
inequalities. In this case, Pellow notes that even the stakeholders with relatively little
power in comparison to the company, such as the plant's workers, can shape
environmental inequality when changing or altering some of the conditions of their
burdened environment (Pellow, 2000).
The tensions between the company, state, scientists, and citizens portrait in this thesis,
expose how essential it is to look at the background, interest, and influence that these
stakeholders possess when contextualized in environmental conflicts. As it was illustrated
throughout this case study, the relationships between CELCO, the state and
environmental authorities, the scientific and academic community, and the citizens'
movements from Maiquillahue and Valdivia (the AXC movement), showed that their role
in the conflict of the Valdivia plant was highly political. Their influence in producing
environmental inequalities was determined by their political clout when negotiating their
interests (Camacho, 1998). The analysis of the process of formation of Environmental
Inequalities, to which vulnerable groups of peoples are unevenly exposed to, considers
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these hierarchies of power, and the context in which these develop in the Chilean setting
(Budds J. , 2004).
In this regard, this thesis revisited the uneven access to environmental decision-making
processes in the Chilean regulatory entities, which benefit a few, in detriment of many.
These regulatory bodies include the environmental law, regulations, the highly technical
and "private" scientific knowledge production in risk assessment studies. Moreover, the
appearance of resistance movements was also important to understand their ways to get
into the debate.
The stakeholders left behind are mainly the communities, which commonly have to
struggle against the state or corporations to improve their burdened status. However,
sometimes they receive support, as it was seen in the Maiquillahue Bay events. In the
case study context, the recognition of the fishers knowledge by the navy, and the need to
explain the truth coming from CELCO consultants, showed that the struggles for
recognition and justice are also extended and legitimized by other actors, commonly
thought of as in positions of power, showing how stories of success in avoiding
hazardous facilities can be explained under the context of cooperation between different
stakeholders.
The state and the corporations are also relevant in the model. Many authors discuss that
the state acts as an "ambassador," or is colluded to the industry, exercising its power
more often in the name of the corporation, than the communities (Pellow, 1999; Pellow et
al., 2001). In the Valdivia plant, the findings showed a conflict inside the state, which
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struggled with trying to separate the health of the economy, with the stability of the
environment. In the Chilean context, the state is usually portrait as "in the middle",
particularly for this situation.
In summary, these findings show that the understanding of the stakeholders as relevant is
key to avoid future environmental inequalities in the study area. The multiple
stakeholders' perspective can be useful to inform the state, corporations, environmental
Planners, and the communities, about the need for inclusion of all groups in
environmental issues.
The role of the stakeholders’ relationships in the avoidance or production of
environmental inequalities: race, autonomy, and accident components
The second sub-questions hypothesis seeks to explain if the avoidance and the production
of environmental inequalities were a product of the negotiations and conflicts between
the stakeholders involved in the two stages of the case study. In this question, the goal
was to answer to what were the reasons behind the different results in the Maiquillahue
Bay and Cruces River' study area. The question is answered, and the hypothesis is
achieved, but it leaves out other important factors in the avoidance of production of
environmental inequalities, such as the accidental component, which was an unexpected
result from this case study.
The negotiation and conflict between stakeholders in both stages showed that, while in
the case of the Maiquillahue Bay the claims of autonomy and inclusion of local
knowledge helped the community to stop the plant from locating a waste pipeline in their
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territory, in the Cruces River basin the public acceptance of the plant's siting was the
main cause of environmental inequality. In both settings the resistance practices coming
from citizens movements actively shaped these outcomes too. As discussed by Pellow
(2000), the wrongly categorized "weak" stakeholders, such as vulnerable community
members, can also be active agents in the production of environmental inequality, and in
the Valdivia Plant, both movements could have been the trigger of environmental
inequality. When the Maiquillahue Bay stopped CELCO from siting the waste pipeline in
their territory, they might have indirectly prompted an environmental inequality outcome
in the Cruces River. Although, this assumption is unfair considering that the initial EIA's
project submitted by CELCO was supported by the public of Mariquina and Valdivia
even when the study contemplated the discharge of effluents into the Cruces River.
The main findings from this section showed that the positive internal discrimination of
indigenous communities and their identity towards their territory played a fundamental
role in the avoidance of environmental inequalities. This was explained considering that
ethnic communities have better access to environmental laws and a strong connection
with their land (Skewes, 2004; Skewes & Guerra, 2004). Their environmental claims
when protecting their territory were also discovered to be significant.
The community members of the Maiquillahue Bay have been demanding autonomy to
manage their resources for over more than 500 years (Skewes & Guerra, 2004). In this
dynamic, the community excludes themselves from any conversation or collaboration
with the state or the company when these types of conflicts arise (TVN, 2011). Unlike
them, the communities affected by the Cruces River contamination, even when looking to
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reform the entire way the state envisions the environment, still legitimize their actions. In
an interview conducted by Laura Pulido, David Pellow mentioned that becoming
complacent with the state, as the community of the Cruces River did, is a colossal
mistake (Pulido, 2017:49). This statement is shared by Peña, who mentions that when a
community looks to accommodate their demands within the existing bureaucratic
regulatory regime, problems arise because these regulations are committed to
exclusionary politics which many times include expert-driven EIA studies (Peña, 2003).
In this same line, the Maiquillahue community had no other choice than to produce their
scientific knowledge, and this was ultimately fundamental to consolidate their claims to
avoid the siting of the waste pipeline in their territory. Considering Peña's point about
participating with and legitimizing the state, the AXC citizens' movement only ensured
that they would comply with the undemocratic environmental institutions. Being inside of
the system would have never allowed them to achieve their goal of closing the Valdivia
plant.
Another relevant finding of this section showed that the avoidance or production of
environmental inequalities could also be a result of a mere accident. Although these
results do not fit the theoretical framework under which this research is framed, it is
impossible to discard this possibility, especially considering the events in the
Maiquillahue Bay. Considering this occurrence, in which the member of the community
discovered the true intentions of the company's consultants, this finding provides further
evidence about the harms of hiding relevant information about possible impacts on the
environment.
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These findings are significant because of two reasons: they inform about how citizens'
movements can get their demands heard, and they explore deeper aspects concerning the
social composition of a community. They are also important because they show
opportunities in which indigenous communities can develop strategies to avoid the
common discriminating factors of polluting facilities.
Finally, this information reveals the relevance of defining autonomy or more moderated
claims when looking to fight for environmentally just environments.
Environmental inequalities formation (EIF)
The third sub-question, which asks how the environmental inequalities unfold as an
outcome of the stakeholders' relationships and their struggles over resources was
answered to reflect what was also postulated by this questions' hypothesis. The
stakeholders’ struggles reveal the structural and local forces that produce environmental
inequality. The findings surrounding this question showed that the linkages between the
stakeholders' relationships, along with the search of structural and local forces to explain
the formation of environmental inequality, were revealed when examining the unequal
access to decision-making processes, the historical context of the Chilean environmental
laws and regulations, and the lack of true knowledge in environmental impacts studies.
Moreover, EJ studies are largely understood to "have a relationship with the conditions
produced by the region´s insertion in the international economy" (Borg Rasmussen &
Pinho, 2016:8). These social dynamics generate inequalities that are visible not only
because of the existence of hazards and pollution, but also because of the unequal access
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to procedural/political justice, recognition, participation, and capabilities (Fraser, 1996;
Hunold & Young, 1998; Nussbaum, 2011) of marginalized communities that resist and
struggle over resources in Environmental Justice studies. This thesis found that the
resources that are being fought for included the lack of access to democratic decision-
making processes in environmental policy, weak laws and regulation, and access to
objective knowledge production in environmental impact assessment studies, all of which
work as structural and local forces that mold and produce environmental inequalities.
One particularly interesting finding in this section was the relevance of the context in
which the environmental laws were funded in Chile, bringing to the fore the importance
of socio-historical issues in the studies of the formation of environmental inequalities. In
this section, this factual finding was the most important to explain the broader causes of
environmental inequality in Valdivia. First, and as noted by Camus and Hajek (1998),
Chile's democracy period, which started in the year 1990, opened the political realm to
start making laws for the environment, but the impulse did not come from national
authorities, but instead appeared in response to external environmental demands that
required minimal environmental standards in their commercial treaties (Camus & Hajek,
1998). Thus, the new environmental regulations in the country were conceived and
design by economic elites who were committed to the neoliberal agenda of the country
(Sepúlveda & Villarroel, 2012). This not only partially explain the internal conflict that
the current environmental authorities hold in environmental conflicts, but also explains
the lack of inclusion in environmental decision-making process, leaving the “citizens’
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participation” aspects of the regulation to be interpreted and followed by EIA experts,
politicians, and lobbyists (Silva, 1997).
The hypothesis and the findings of this section relate to previous studies done in EJ, such
as the work of Bullard and Johnson (2000), which shows that environmental protection
and regulation apparatuses can sometimes reinforce and create inequality in the
environment (Bullard, 1996). Looking at the findings about the lack of access to the truth
in scientific knowledge production, authors such as Bryant argue that "because of
immediate demands for certainty and solution embodied in issue-oriented research,
scientists often find themselves in a position of not knowing more than those affected"
(Bryant, 1995:15). Moreover, the scientists that produce the EIA risk assessment studies
are not 100% sure about the environmental risks and usually venture into uncertain
decision-making. Meanwhile, the community affected by uncertainty is rarely a part of
that decision-making process (Bryant, 1995). Knowledge production in the Valdivia plant
shows that this resource is treated as a commodity, which is "purchased in the market by
the highest bidder" (Bryant, 1995). In this case, the bidders are CELCO and the state.
This finding shows how under the social control of powerful forces, the use of science
can be more beneficial for some interest groups in detriment of others, causing
inequalities in society, and finally producing environmental inequalities in the physical
environment.
Bailey et al. (1995) argues that environmental authorities and industrial interests "usually
attempt to protect themselves by founding their decision on objective criteria and the
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rational logic of risk assessment studies. However, “scientific criteria and logic often
ignore the disproportionate burden of environmental and human health risks imposed on
minority communities" (Bailey et al., 1995:38).
The struggle among these topics between the stakeholders is visible in the Valdivia plant,
where local scientist and scholars fought and failed to include their expert knowledge
about the contamination of the Cruces River. The opposite happened in the Maiquillahue
Bay where grassroots organizations had the access and influence to publish their local
knowledge, educating the public in the streets and accessing to other non-academic
platforms to socialize their knowledge (Skewes, 2004).
The authors mentioned in this literature reveal that EIA studies and environmental
regulations do not inform and leave the general public out of the most critical stages of
the decision-making process, which usually include the negotiated risks, the location of
the hazardous facility, and other technical aspects (Garcia et al., 2006; Sepulveda &
Villarroel, 2012). Moreover, other findings in this section showed that even when the
community can participate in the EIA process, this participation only happens after the
project is already outlined (Garcia et al., 2006), leaving out all of the modifications that
can be done following the citizens' participation time window, which is 60 days. After
this time window, the corporations can rewrite the entire project, as seen in the
background and timeline of events on the Valdivia plant, where the company submitted
even four ADDENDUMs concerning their interests in the region, but the overall study
only had one instance of citizens’ participation.
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In the 1970s, an economic policy based on free-market doctrines was initiated in Chile
(Harvey, 2007). The new development strategy sought economic growth through the
deregulation of the economy and openness to foreign trade (Kay, 2002). And as it was
mentioned while reviewing the Political Ecology literature, the causes that explain the
production of environmental Inequalities can be concealed behind the social relations that
develop in these neoliberal settings, in which the conception of what “environment” is
gets distorted include the myriad discourses and right-wing ideologies that leave local
knowledge, such as the one of indigenous people, out of the decision-making processes.
The Political Ecology approach provides a large social and political economic framework
to study the role of neoliberalism in the marginalization of the analyzed communities,
along with causal explanations (Robbins, 2004) to the environmental degradation in the
Rio Cruces basin, relating these environmental inequality issues with the politics and
political economy developed in the country since the privatization led by Pinochet in the
1970s.
By concluding the examination of the Valdivia plant events, this case finds that
environmental inequalities/injustices in the study area are not merely outcomes/effects of
unilateral relationships between perpetrator and victim. Instead, these relationships and
outcomes show a complicated and continuous process that includes different ties between
stakeholders that resist, make alliances, negotiate, and change along both stages and
timelines of events. These results may help to think about what policies could be used to
improve or end the problem of environmental inequality. At the same time, these
explanations can also help movements when considering their claims and demands,
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which could be guided, for instance, towards the demands of environmental law reforms,
or more radical claims of autonomy and independence from the environmental regulation
of the EIA system. The inclusion of these three sub-questions contribute to the
understandings about the causes and production of environmental inequality, seeing the
phenomenon as a process (and not a discrete event), which is mediated by multiple
stakeholders' relationships. These relationships are subjected to continuous changes,
shifts in interests, and resistances that shape and reorganize the social and environmental
disparities along the way. More research should be guided to these topics and
understanding about the occurrences of environmental inequality, giving more attention
to the linkages between Environmental Justice and Political Ecology studies.
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CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION
Much of Environmental Justice studies document if a community suffering from an
environmental hazard is non-white or low-income, ignoring the community's context and
relationships with other actors involved. These relationships might reflect the
Environmental Inequality Formation as the continuous shaping and change in alliances
between multiple stakeholders. By following Pellow's model of Environmental Inequality
Formation, this thesis investigated the role that various stakeholders play in the formation
of Environmental Injustice in Valdivia. The paradigm used in this thesis is highly
relevant considering that much of the Environmental Justice research only documents if
the community suffering from an environmental hazard is less powerful, non-white or
low-income, ignoring the community's context, dynamic, inputs, relationships, and
outcomes with other actors involved (Pellow, 2001).
The key findings of this thesis revealed that the stakeholders involved in the Valdivia
plant case study, and the relationships between them played an important role in
determining environmental inequality outcomes. The main findings included the
description of the stakeholders' interests and adverse events within the case study; the
identification of the factors that allowed different environmental outcomes to happen in a
geographical area and not in other, and the linkages between the stakeholders'
relationships and the production of environmental inequality. These linkages showed that
the unequal access to decision-making processes, weak laws and regulations, and the lack
of access to true knowledge were the main structural and local causes that serve as the
underlying causes of environmental inequality in Valdivia.
108
This thesis hopes to bring new insights to the environmental inequality literature.
However, there are still other areas that are understudied and deserve attention in future
research endeavors. The recognition of knowledge production in environmental
inequality studies is helpful, and more research should incorporate local knowledge from
citizens who have experienced environmental inequalities in their daily lives, to enable a
deeper understanding of specific Environmental Justice struggles to give groups that are
characterized by powerlessness more leverage to resist and protect their environments.
Moreover, further work concerning the bridging between Political Ecology studies and
Environmental Justice in the future could result in better analysis concerning justice in
countries with neoliberal dictatorships, such as Chile.
Lastly, by examining the histories behind environmental inequalities, this type of
research can further move to understand complex human - environment relations and
social inequality in EJ studies.
109
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APPENDIX. SECONDARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Type of
source
Name Author Stakeholder Date
Archival
records
National surveys INE
1992
INE State authorities J-92
newspaper
article
The Cellulose Plant does
not imply ecological
damage
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/29/95
newspaper
article
The Sanjosinos speak: ''
Pulp mill is hope '' [Las
Comunas / report]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 7/16/95
Archival
records
Environmental Impact
[Letter to the editor by
Alvaro Mardones]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 9/9/95
Archival
records
Development and nature
[Editorial Column by
Gregorio Papic Garcia]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 10/5/95
Documents Project File: Valdivia
Project (Celulosa
Arauco y Constitución)
First Presentation:
Background, EIA study.
SEIA CELCO 10/6/95
newspaper
article
Cellulose Plant
[Editorial]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 10/28/95
Archival
records
Environmentalists
[Letter to the editor by
Vladimir Riesco]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/18/95
newspaper
article
President Frei comes to
Valdivia in March
[Local News]
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 1/10/96
newspaper
article
they will try their
destiny in Osorno!
CELLULOSE PLANT
IS ON THE SCALE!
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
1/17/96
Archival
records
First Newfoundland ...
[Letter to the editor by
anonymous]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
1/20/96
newspaper
article
Senator Gabriel Valdés:
DEFINITIVE: THE
PLANT IS BUILT IN
MARIQUINA.
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 1/26/96
122
Archival
records
Martín Fierro [Letter to
the editor by Alfredo
Schüler von Delitz].
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
2/17/96
Archival
records
The swans also fly
[Editorial by Alfredo
Ross]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 2/26/96
Documents Report of the technical
committee of COREMA
X regarding 1 EIA,
ADDENDUM and
MEMORANDUM
presented by the project:
Celulose Valdivia Plant
COREMA X State authorities 3/8/96
newspaper
article
In September of the 96
will begin tasks in Plant
of Cellulose
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/5/96
newspaper
article
For cellulose: Fishermen
opposed consulting work
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
6/20/96
newspaper
article
The Mehuín Committee
confirmed: ''They will
have install it by force,
because we will not
allow it''
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
6/21/96
newspaper
article
Mapuches announce
mobilizations
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
6/21/96
Archival
records
Another Newfoundland
[Letter to the editor by
anonymous]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
6/27/96
Archival
records
Effects [Letter to the
editor by Mehuín
Community Defense
Committee of Mehuín]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/2/96
newspaper
article
Uncertainty [Editorial] El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/5/96
newspaper
article
Resistance in Mehuín:
Community will defend
their shore at all costs
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/7/96
Archival
records
Mehuín [Letter to the
editor by Mehuín
Community Defense
Committee of Mehuín]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/9/96
newspaper They propose to create El Diario CELCO 7/19/96
123
article cellulose support front Austral
newspaper
article
Lamentations in
Mariquina '' The
company never informed
us about the installation
of a pipeline towards
Mehuín ''
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 7/20/96
Archival
records
Cellulose [Letter to the
editor by Osvaldo
Lunecke Anwandter]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/23/96
Archival
records
Mr. Director [Letter to
the editor by Ricardo
Henriquez Perede]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/24/96
newspaper
article
Mehuín-Mariquina
[Letter to the editor by
Mehuín Community
Defense Committee of
Mehuín
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
7/24/96
newspaper
article
Slow support reaction El Diario
Austral
State authorities 7/25/96
newspaper
article
Councilman Kunstmann:
'' We would not stand a
new failure ''
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 8/9/96
newspaper
article
Dialogue and
mobilization
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
10/8/96
newspaper
article
“Caleta de Mehuín” it’s
a huge headache.
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 11/22/96
newspaper
article
Vice President Figueroa:
People from Mehuín ''
are exalted for no reason
''
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 11/23/96
newspaper
article
It is very delicate to
oppose just for
opposing.
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 11/23/96
newspaper
article
We are going to take
measures to guarantee
public order"
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 11/27/96
Documents Exempt Resolution No.
11/97 welcomes 2 EIA
procedures
CONAMA State authorities 8/5/97
newspaper
article
Cellulose Forum:
Neither company nor
committee Mehuín.
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 10/15/97
124
newspaper
article
Mehuinense women
broke into the workshop.
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
10/15/97
Documents Project File: Valdivia
Project (Celulosa
Arauco and Constitución
S.A.) Second
Presentation:
Background, EIA study,
Monitoring,
Administrative
paperworks, Sanctions.
SEIA CELCO 10/23/97
Documents Addendum -Informacion
adicional relacionado
con la evacuacion de
effluentes en la bahia de
Maiquillahue
ADDENDUM CELCO 12/1/97
Documents Addendum -Informacion
adicional
ADDENDUM CELCO 12/1/97
Documents Addendum-Additional
information related to
the evacuation of
effluents in
Maiquillahue Bay
Addendum -Additional
information
ICSARA - Corema
requires information that
is not clear regarding the
potential impacts in
Maiquillahue Bay
COREMA X State authorities 12/1/97
Documents Exempt Resolution No.
73/97 extension of terms
CONAMA State authorities 12/16/97
Documents Addendum-Additional
information related to
the evacuation of
effluents in
Maiquillahue Bay
ADDENDUM CELCO 1/7/98
newspaper
article
In Bahia de
Maiquillahue:
Government Will Give
Protection to Celco for
Measurements
El Mercurio State authorities 1/7/98
newspaper Nobody has subjected El Diario State authorities 1/15/98
125
article the Mapuches Austral
newspaper
article
Fishermen of Mehuín in
vigil Maximum alert!
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
1/22/98
newspaper
article
Committee is unaware
of the validity of Celco
measurements
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
1/26/98
Documents Exempt Resolution No.
18/98. Suspension of
deadlines
COREMA X State authorities 1/27/98
newspaper
article
Environmentally viable:
Plant does not involve
risks
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 1/28/98
Documents Exempt Resolution No.
87/98
COREMA X State authorities 4/28/98
Documents Exempt Resolution No.
219/98 Suspension of
terms
COREMA X State authorities 8/26/98
Documents RCA Resolution No.279
/ 98
COREMA X State authorities 1998
Documents File of follow-up and
control of the project
COREMA X State authorities 2/13/04
newspaper
article
CONAMA delivers
UACh report to the State
Defense Consul (CDE)
CONAMA State authorities 4/18/04
newspaper
article
OLCA asks for a
commission
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
10/29/04
Documents History of the
infractions of celco to
the laws of Chile and its
responsibility in the
environmental damage
of the Sanctuary of Rio
Cruces
AXC Community and
Environmentalist
11/1/04
newspaper
article
Citizen's open forum El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
11/16/04
newspaper
article
Waiting for answers El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
11/17/04
newspaper
article
New dead swans found
in the Cruces River
El Diario
Austral
Scientist and
scholars
11/17/04
newspaper
article
30 days till the UACh
final report
El Diario
Austral
Scientist and
scholars
11/17/04
126
newspaper
article
Veterinarians from
Valdivia and Mariquina
denounce strange death
of animals near the
cellulose plant
La Tercera scientist and
scholars
11/24/04
newspaper
article
Problems with pulp mill El Mercurio State authorities 11/25/04
newspaper
article
PURE ALEGRIA:
kindergartners '' took ''
the streets. Celebration
and called for the end of
pollution
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
11/26/04
newspaper
article
The Austral Journal,
2004b. Children call to
become aware
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
11/26/04
newspaper
article
The plant is not killing
the Swans
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 11/27/04
Archival
records
Swans [Letter to the
editor by Roberto
Valdivia]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/11/04
Archival
records
Commitment [Letter to
the editor by Alejandro,
Valdivia]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/11/04
Archival
records
Protests [Letter to the
editor by Francisco
Kenner H.]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/11/04
Archival
records
The truth [Letter to the
editor by Rebeca
Escobar, Valdivia]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/11/04
newspaper
article
People think: we should
protect our swans
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/19/04
newspaper
article
First lawsuit against
CELCO
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/24/04
newspaper
article
Protest agains the Plant El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/24/04
Archival
records
They are obsessed
[Letter to the editor by
francisco Saliunas]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 12/25/04
Archival
records
That do not conform
[Letter to the editor by
Juan Lillo]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
127
Archival
records
What difference there
are? [Letter to the editor
by Felix Sanhueza]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Something dies [Letter
to the editor by Margrita
Carrasco Pedreros,
Santiago]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Victims or Victims
[Letter to the editor by
Gaston Oyarzon]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Committed authorities
[Letter to the editor by
Angela ...]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Ecological damage
[Letter to the editor by
Fernando Neyra
Palomino]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Multifactorial [Letter to
the editor by Ricardo
Gpnzálex Jiménez]
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 12/25/04
Archival
records
The case of Lima [Letter
to the editor by Marcelo
Montecinos]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
All the support [Letter to
the editor by Mariela
Cartes]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
About the report [Letter
to the editor by Mirta C.
Sanhueza D.]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Dark Macha [Letter to
the editor by Marcos
Salas]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
More respect [Letter to
the editor by Nicole
Grandjean Burgos]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Studio [Letter to the
editor by Leonardo
Hernández]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Dialog of the future
[Letter to the editor by
G.P.M]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
Velatón por cisnes
[Letter to the editor by
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
128
Archival
records
Ignorant [Letter to the
editor by Aldo Da Bove
A.]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
From Spain [Letter to
the editor by Juan
Alvarez Latorre,
Madrid]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
Archival
records
The Austral Journal,
2004z. Concerned
[Letter to the editor by
Andrea Aquilera]
El Diario
Austral
Community and
Environmentalist
12/25/04
newspaper
article
Closing of the Valdivia
plant: Lagos demands
compliance with the
Environmental Law
El Mercurio State authorities 1/20/05
newspaper
article
Angelini in a black
collar
El Mercurio Community and
Environmentalist
1/23/05
newspaper
article
Plant stays closed El Diario
Austral
State authorities 2/9/05
newspaper
article
Citizens movement
denounce agreements
between the government
and CELCO
Cooperativa.cl Community and
Environmentalist
2/16/05
newspaper
article
COREMA X lifted the
sanction against the
cellulose plant
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 2/16/05
newspaper
article
Iron and manganese hurt
the wetland
El Diario
Austral
Scientist and
scholars
2/17/05
newspaper
article
COREMA X sanctions
CELCO with 66 Chilean
million pesos
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 3/9/05
Archival
records
Critical position of
action by the swans
before the final report of
the ZAROR consultant
AXC Community and
Environmentalist
4/7/05
Documents Study on the origin of
mortalities and
population decline of
aquatic birds in the
Carlos Anwandter
UACh Scientist and
scholars
4/18/05
129
Nature Sanctuary, in the
province of Valdivia
Newspaper
article
Ecologists ask for the
closure of the plant
OLCA Community and
Environmentalist
4/20/05
newspaper
article
Senator Valdés lamented
damage to the Sanctuary
El Diario
Austral
State authorities 4/20/05
Documents Comments on the final
report of the
Universidad Austral de
Chile for the Regional
Directorate of
CONAMA X region of
the Lakes "Study on the
origin of mortalities and
population decline of
aquatic birds in the
Carlos Anwandter
Nature Sanctuary, in the
province of Valdivia"
CASEB Scientist and
scholars
4/25/05
Documents University of Chile
report - exculpating
CELCO under 3
hypotheses: absence of
rain in the area, low
river flow, and low
temperatures.
CASEB – PI:
Victor Marin
Scientist and
scholars
4/30/05
Archival
records
Open letter of action by
the swans to the
professionals,
technicians and officials
of the CONAMA
AXC Community and
Environmentalist
5/30/05
Documents EULA - Official press
release from the Eula
center - Universidad de
Concepcion
EULA Scientist and
scholars
6/1/05
newspaper
article
Contractors do not rule
out mobilizing
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/9/05
newspaper
article
Workers back the
board's decision
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/9/05
newspaper
article
Labor concern El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/9/05
130
Archival
records
Reposition of exempt
resolution 377/05 of the
regional commission on
the environment
AXC Community and
Environmentalist
6/10/05
newspaper
article
Private fear escalation of
search for new ''
Celcazos ''
El Mercurio CELCO 6/10/05
newspaper
article
Workers criticize Girardi El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/11/05
newspaper
article
The other side of the
Currency, Celco
widowers
El Mercurio CELCO 6/11/05
newspaper
article
Contractors will carry
out national mobilization
El Diario
Austral
CELCO 6/24/05
Archival
records
Hierarchical remedy
against exempt
resolution 377/05 of
COREMA X and, in a
binding manner, to
exempt resolutions
462/05 and 461/05 of the
same entity, which rule
on two appeals filed
against the first
AXC Community and
Environmentalist
8/1/05
newspaper
article
Nobody will do projects
in Chile without having
resolved the
environmental issue
El Mercurio Community and
Environmentalist
8/2/05
newspaper
article
Celco solution is subject
to exit to the sea
El Mercurio CELCO 8/8/05
Archival
records
Lawsuit before the Latin
American water court
AXC Community and
Environmentalist
12/1/05
Documents Project File: Definitive
Works of the Emergency
Spill Lagoon in the
Valdivia Plant:
Background, EIA study,
Monitoring, Sanctions.
SEIA CELCO 12/13/05
newspaper
article
CELCO prepares key
report on Valdivia case
Business and
economy
(E&N)
CELCO 11/16/06
newspaper
article
Doctors say House
representative Fernando
El Diario
Austral
Scientist and
scholars
11/16/06
131
Meza is ignorant
newspaper
article
RAMSAR convention
experts arrive to
Valdivia next week
Valdivia
Noticias
Scientist and
scholars
11/22/06
Archival
records
National surveys INE
2007
INE State authorities J-07
Documents Project File:
Incorporation of a
Membrane Filtration
System for the
Treatment of Effluents
and Other
Environmental
Improvements in
Valdivia Plant:
Background, EIA study,
Monitoring,
Administrative
paperwork.
SEIA CELCO 6/12/07
Documents Project File: Arsenic
emission limit update in
Valdivia plant effluent:
Voluntary commitment
to comply with Chilean
drinking water standard
as emission limit for
arsenic in the discharge.
Background, EIA study.
SEIA CELCO 11/3/07
Archival
records
National surveys INE
2002
INE State authorities J-2002
Documentary Paper City: Celco in
Valdivia
Jirafa/Valdivia
productions
Community and
Environmentalist
J-2008
Documentary Chile mobilizes: Mehuin TVN Community and
Environmentalist
J-2011
Archival
records
Sanctioning process COREMA X State authorities 2004-
2010
